GREENMASK!

Bibliophile Sgt. Maddox on the Hollywood police force is interrupted when shelving his books by a series of apparently motiveless murders affiliated only by the signature of the killer, Greenmask, a green ribbon and a county guide. Nagged by some association, he finally makes the connection to a plot borrowed from Agatha Christie in which only one crime is an ""intended kill"". Imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery but some readers will question the literary ethics thereof, or the application here which is digressive rather than really ruminative.