Retired FBI agent Gregor Demarkian is back with another deceptively tricky mystery in Blood in the Water, the 27th novel in Jane Haddam's series. Struggling with a recent loss in his personal life, we find Gregor ruminating on the irrationality of death and the inevitable progression of time when he is suddenly approached by the Pineville Station police department. Two bodies have been discovered in the elite, gated community of Waldorf Pines and an unexpected DNA result has left local forces completely at a loss. Gregor is forced to contend with small-town ineptitude, monstrous egos and upper-middle-class hypocrisy to get to the bottom of this case of not exactly mistaken identity.
Despite the fact that the plot hinges on a less than shocking twist, Haddam writes an engaging, plausible mystery. Her real strength, though, is in succinct and evocative character portraits. Haddam populates Waldorf Pines with the kind of narrow-minded, socially conscious but apparently harmless people we've all had as neighbors, but under the surface run seams of dangerous ignorance and violent egotism. Perhaps most disturbing is the neighborhood tyrant, Walter Dunbar, whose calm detachment and self-righteousness as he imagines grinding his wife's face beneath his heel when she irritates him is truly frightening. With such a varied cast of suspects, it's little wonder that the good men and women of the Pineville police force had to call in specialized help! All in all, Blood in the Water is a solid addition to a tried and tested series. --Judie Evans, librarian