Caged

May 17, 2010
While Norman's lame fourth Sam Becket mystery thriller (after Shimmer) offers an original murder method (a serial killer glues together the couples he slays by the genitals), practically everything else in the book is derivative. Becket, an African-American detective in Miami Beach, Fla., has a supporting cast James Patterson's Alex Cross would find familiar, including a psychologist wife able to contribute to his work, a toddler son, and a 22-year-old adopted daughter. When the nude, glued corpses of newlyweds Suzy and Michael Easterman turn up under a large plastic dome on an art gallery's lawn and more killings fitting this pattern follow, Becket goes on a long-planned vacation cruise with his spouse, despite a public frenzy. Less than coherent prose ("Because even in a jurisdiction as civilized as Miami Beach, a Violent Crimes detective all too often had to deal with madness and evil") and a small pool of viable suspects don't help.