Trail of Blood

Seventy-five years ago, the Torso Killer terrorized a city with a horrific spree of murder/dismemberments. He was never caught.

It would be impossible for the maniac to still be at large—and active—today . . .

A decapitated body has been found in a sealed room in an abandoned building—and forensic scientist Theresa MacLean believes the decades-old corpse is a previously unaccounted-for victim of the legendary psychopath. But the discovery of a second body—newly slain and bearing the unmistakable signature of the Torso Killer—suggests the unthinkable: that a copycat serial killer is following in a madman’s bloody footprints.

A long-dormant nightmare has been reawakened as a dark history repeats itself. Theresa MacLean’s forensic investigation has opened a door into a terrifying past—a door someone desperately wants to keep closed . . . and will keep killing to make it so.

Seventy-five years ago, a madman nicknamed the Torso Killer terrorized Cleveland. His horrific spree lasted four years and crisscrossed the entire city. Overall, he was ...

Publishers Weekly

Two parallel serial murder cases 75 years apart drive former forensic scientist Black's compelling if formulaic third crime thriller starring Cleveland forensic scientist Theresa MacLean (after Evidence of Murder). When a mummified corpse turns up in an abandoned warehouse, the police believe the body to be a victim of the 1930s Torso Killer, the real-life perpetrator of Cleveland's first and still unsolved string of gruesome dismemberments. Then a copycat killer strikes. Black shifts between Theresa's Nancy Drewesque reason-defying chase of the present-day killer and the Depression-era pursuit of the original Torso Killer by James Miller, the honest Cleveland cop whose tragic death comes to obsess Theresa. On the personal front, the divorced, recently empty-nested Theresa, edgily nearing 40 a year after her fiancé's death, feels shaky about Chris Cavanaugh, a handsome hostage negotiator. Amid facile stereotypes and unconvincing plot twists, the fast-paced action hurtles to a breathless conclusion. (Sept.)

Lisa Black is a latent fingerprint examiner in Florida and a former forensic scientist for the Cleveland coroner's office. She is a member of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences and has testified in more than forty-five homicide trials. This is her second Theresa MacLean novel.