Blood in the Water

Starred review from January 16, 2012
Edgar-finalist Haddam shows no sign of creative fatigue in her baffling 27th whodunit featuring ex-FBI agent turned police consultant Gregor Demarkian (after 2011’s Flowering Judas). One night at Waldorf Pines, a gated Philadelphia suburb, Arthur Heydreich, whose unfaithful wife, Martha, has disappeared, stumbles on a corpse in the community swimming pool, just when the pool house goes up in flames. The body in the pool is that of Martha’s teenage lover, Michael Platte. Charred human remains discovered in the pool house are presumed to be Martha’s, until DNA analysis proves they’re male. The local eccentric police chief, who originally thought Arthur murdered Martha and Michael, calls in Gregor to make sense of the case. Few readers will reach the answer to this crafty puzzle before the endearing and brilliant sleuth, or tease out the significance of the clue of the extra garden hose. Agent: Don Maass, Donald Maass Literary Agency.