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SEASON OF THE ASSASSIN by Thomas Laird

SEASON OF THE ASSASSIN

by Thomas Laird

Pub Date: March 1st, 2003
ISBN: 0-7867-1124-8

After his debut in Cutter (2001), Lieutenant Jimmy Parisi of the Chicago PD returns in a novel that could well have been titled Butcher, opening as it does in a charnel house—seven student nurses slaughtered in their dormitory, beaten to a pulp and eviscerated. Jimmy’s dad, himself a Chicago police lieutenant back in 1968, had caught the murderer a few days later. Carl Anglin, a special-forces assassin in WWII, was clearly guilty, and no one connected to the case ever doubted it. Unfortunately, the evidence against him depended on the testimony of two witnesses, one of whom mysteriously died before the trial could begin, the other—an eighth student nurse, hideously shocked by the butchery she witnessed from hiding—virtually catatonic. Anglin walked. Now, 31 years later, a “spree-killer” is back again on Jimmy’s watch, someone with Anglin’s unmistakable signature. In his late father’s absence, Jimmy takes on Hamlet’s burden and dedicates himself to bringing the aging but still bloodthirsty psychopath to justice. Anglin, however, has powerful allies who seem determined to keep Jimmy at bay. What could motivate so much of the US government to protect a murderer with Anglin’s grisly credentials? Is someone scared trying to hide something evil? Is there a conspiracy? Is it the conspiracy? No matter: A cop’s got to do what a cop’s got to do, and with a little help from on high, Jimmy does it.

Though more tightly knit than his even more grisly debut, this second act remains only middling.