ZODIAC

A serial killer is on the loose in a society ruled by its citizens' zodiac signs.

In San Celeste, the caste system is alive and well, though it’s based not on wealth but on astrology. When Chief of Police Peter Williams is found murdered in a trench in his backyard, a Taurus symbol drawn around the makeshift grave, Detective Jerome Burton wonders if the crime is motivated by the stars or something closer to Earth. Joined by astrological profiler Lindiwe “Lindi” Childs, the taciturn Burton, a by-the-book Taurus cop, investigates the possibility that Williams’ murder is linked to a fringe radical group, Aries Rising, which protests against “rampant signism” in the justice system, just one of the ways Wilson attempts, and fails, in his debut to turn the ridiculous plot into social commentary. As the investigation grinds on and more bodies turn up, each one a different star sign, the action shifts between the present day and past efforts of industrial playboy Daniel Lapton, a Capricorn who’s sure he knows everything, to track down the daughter he never knew he had and, in the process, uncover shady goings-on at a secret school for children born under the wrong sign.

The use of astrology, while intriguing, is not enough to hang an entire novel on, let alone an entire fictional society, and Wilson’s efforts to whip up suspense around the multiple murder case fall as flat as his characters.