Virtue Falls

July 21, 2014
In the predictable first of a new suspense series, bestseller Dodd (Lady in Black) tracks West Coast turmoil of all sorts. For starters, a serial killer who delights in murdering young women and mutilating their children is loose in California. Meanwhile, an earthquake hits the town of Virtue Falls, Wash., with an attendant tsunami and aftershocks. The geologist on the scene, Elizabeth Banner, has crime in her background. Her father was put away decades ago for fatally stabbing her mother, Misty, with a pair of scissors. But did he? Papa Banner has always maintained his innocence, and odd similarities between Misty's death and the serial killer's m.o. raise the terrifying possibility that the Banner killer might still be at large. Steamy romance between Elizabeth and her ex, as well as charming minor characters, such as an amiable retired physician, help alleviate the tedium of this novel, whose conclusion one can see hundreds of pages before the end. 100,000 first printing. Agent: Mel Berger, William Morris Endeavor.

October 27, 2014
The first novel in Dodd’s new series focuses on Elizabeth Banner, a stunningly beautiful but emotionally blocked geologist who has returned to Virtue Falls, Wash., the oceanside town where, a couple of decades ago, at the age of four, she supposedly witnessed her brilliant scientist father murder her mother with a pair of scissors. Though the body was never found, Charles Banner was convicted and tossed into state prison. When a major earthquake followed by a tsunami hits, Elizabeth is elated to be the first geologist on the scene, but her mom’s corpse is disinterred by the quake. Then her FBI agent ex-husband, Garik, whom she still loves, arrives hunting for a serial murderer who uses scissors to kill mothers and their children. Reader Soler does well delivering dramatic dialogue, of which there is an abundance, what with the townspeople frantically reacting to the murders and the continuing aftershocks and their village being cut off from the rest of the world by the quake. She’s particularly effective in finding a lovable Irish brogue for Elizabeth’s tough but kindhearted mother-in-law. But her presumably natural girlish, almost chirpy voice is sometimes at odds with the material, particularly noticeable during sequences in which Dodd describes with graphic eloquence Elizabeth and Garik rolling about, rekindling their romantic passion. The production also includes a conversation between Dodd and romance-suspense writer Jayne Ann Krentz. A St. Martin’s hardcover.