"Silent Screams," a novel

by C.E. Lawrence

A murder mystery told through—not a cop, as one would expect, but a criminal profiler Lee Campbell. He has problems on his own, trying to cope with the disappearance of his sister 5 years earlier , which subsequently led to his nervous breakdown, from which he emerges as a shaken-up NYPD criminal profiler. He is facing off against "Slasher," a serial killer and religious fanatic who is killing pretty young Catholic girls around New York and leaves the bodies sprawled at the altars of various churches with the Bible verses carved into their torsos. With each new victim Slasher becomes more brazen. He contacts Campbell on several occasions and even visits him in hospital where Campbell is recovering from meningitis. As the suspense builds toward the end, so does the absurdity of the characters and the interaction between good and bad guys.

C.E. Lawrence pays unhealthy attention to details and often interrupts nicely flowing dialogue or action, to describe elements of the surrounding environment irrelevant for the story. That breaks the flow and often slows the already slow pace of the story. As we reach the culmination, the situation becomes less believable and ends up in anticlimax.

Lee Campbell's character is solidly built, but unfortunately other characters don't have the same depth. The bad guys almost seem like work in progress to which a lot remains to be added.

Although significantly better than Dean Koontz's novel I read ("Your Heart Belongs to Me," the only Koontz I'll ever read--life's too short to be wasted on bad books), overall "Silent Screams" is a disappointment, although I could see it being a sufficient entertainment for a long flight. Beats the in-flight magazine, in any case.