Ashes To Ashes (Paperback)

A serial killer is out to get prostitutes in Minneapolis and an ex-FBI female profiler, Kate Conlan, now working as a lowly witness-advocate, finds herself in the middle of the action. There are tough cops (both male and female) and a Mr. Cool top FBI master profiler, John Quinn, all of whose paths criss-cross over incinerated bodies and a building public relations disaster when a local millionaire's daughter disappears and is presumed a victim of "Smokey Joe's" -- the serial killer who likes burning his victims in public places.

Somewhat predictably, Conlan and Quinn make it to the sack since they happen to be ex-lovers, who both feel terribly frustrated with their post-affair, separate lives. Thankfully, Hoag keeps the sex well below saturation so that we can concentrate on the task of nailing Smokey Joe.

The plot is somewhat squishy at times, but the main characters sound very real and hard at work of putting the bad guys behind bars. Hoag's cop language is thoroughly convincing. Situations evolve quickly and lead into smooth transfers to the next (unanticipated) twist of events. As for winter in Minneapolis, it sounds awful, a true beastly affair of snow and mud under lead-colored skies.

And yes.... the serial killer turns out to be the most unlikely person in the Ashes to Ashes line up.

This is an honest cop thriller. On my Page Turner scale of 0 (worst) to 10 (best), it comfortably scores a 7 plus.

We're introduced to a 'plucky' heroine who is apparently able and willing to tackle the odd stray gunman with ... wait for it... her shoe. You just know she's going to end up staring death in the face and coming up with a smart remark (in fact her unfeasible fortitude later in the book puts her right up there with the martyrs). And a hero who is chisel jawed and handsome, a world-weary genius who emerges from her murky past and woos her with the kind of dialogue one would expect to find in a Barbara Cartland novel.

Hero and heroine, along with a bunch of unbelievably cliche'd hard-assed cops, are pitted against a serial killer - the 'Cremator' - whose evil deeds, while undeniably bloody (burned corpses with chunks removed and suitably artistic arrangements of wounds) are frankly without credibility. And the further one gets into the book, the more lacking in credibility they become. Like the previous reviewer, I was kept guessing - in the face of a number of red herrings that screamed "I'M A RED HERRING!" (subtlety is not this author's strong point) until a few chapters before the big denouement. But that's largely because the whole plot was so preposterous, and the characters so one-dimensional, that it didn't make any sense anyway. Oh - and I probably missed quite a lot because I was laughing so hard at the love scenes I was temporarily blinded by tears of mirth.

A really, really disappointing read.