THE ART OF DYING

A thriller puts Boston cops on the trail of a twisted serial killer.

In downtown Boston, Detective Ray Hanley has just left a courtroom and intends to meet his brother, Jacob, for a charity golf tournament. But his phone rings and his partner, Billy Devlin, calls him to the Granite Rail Quarries to investigate a death. The body fished from a quarry is Danny “the Mule” McDougal. Danny’s genitals and face have been creatively mutilated, and the detectives realize that this grisly, insulting death probably isn’t the work of either the Giabatti or Flaherty crime families. The killer, calling himself the Artist, kidnaps people who have wronged him, then tortures and mutilates them to death. The next victim, art gallery owner Barry Finkleton, ends up on display in the Stony Brook Reservation, hanging from a tree with crafted spider legs stuck where his own limbs used to be. Meanwhile, Jack Flaherty, the Irish mob boss, says that “the truce is over” between him and Italian kingpin Sal Giabatti. As Boston starts to resemble the bullet-riddled Old West, Ray grows more comfortable around his ex-girlfriend Tina Bolton, who works in the medical examiner’s office. The collision of his personal and professional lives may rock the entire city. In this second thriller starring the Hanley brothers, Cavignano (The Righteous and the Wicked, 2014, etc.) juxtaposes Clive Barker-style horror with Boston neighborhoods like Southie and oddities such as the “bright orange Tyrannosaurus Rex” on Route 1. The Artist’s behavior is gag-inducing and includes feeding his victims slices of one another and raping them. Relief comes during scenes of domestic bliss in Charlestown, where Ray and his wife raise three children. Elsewhere, the tone is macho but campy, especially Billy’s dialogue (“When life gives you melons, you gotta squeeze them while they’re ripe”). Overall, the author cracks his whip over the narrative, pushing the Flaherty family and the Artist under a single, villainous spotlight. Readers fatigued by bloated series may appreciate this. Then again, Cavignano’s vibrant imagination might flourish in a decompressed, multibook storyline. Here, though, his breakneck pacing consistently entertains.

Boston gets gory in this enjoyable, horror-tinged crime tale.