The Next Accident

August 1, 2001
Gardner brings back the quirky team of FBI supervisory special agent Pierce Quincy and Portland private eye Rainie Conner in a fiendishly well choreographed dance of death. The reader knows from the outset (a seduction scene ending in vehicular homicide) that someone has set out to systematically murder FBI profiler Quincy's loved ones. The question is not why, since Quincy has tracked down many killers, but who. Specifically, who would have the resources of time, money, and psychological acumen to devise and carry out such a sadistic campaign? After the first death, Quincy calls upon Conner to investigate; the plot moves to the clock of the killer's agenda. The weak points of Gardner's writing are his dialogue and characterization: Conner's overly snappy banter and her hardbitten personality are both overdone. But Gardner knows procedure, FBI behavioral science, and the details of such newly minted crimes as identity theft. Not deep but harrowing.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2001, American Library Association.)