Eyes

A serial killer is stalking Chicago coeds. So far, he's murdered and mutilated three, and neither Detective David Gold nor his consultant, psychic psychiatrist Dr. Susan Shader, has a clue about his identity. But with the fourth victim, an inoffensive housewife who has no obvious parallels with the three students, comes a break in the case - though one that leads to a disastrously mistaken arrest - and the fifth killing, of a University of Chicago dropout, cracks it wide open. Now at last Susan's gift of second sight, coupled with Gold's detective work, is enough to finger the killer just as he's reaching out for his next victim. Despite some streaks of purple prose ("It was easy to see that her long legs led to a rich, sensual pelvis") and some schoolboy errors (an old-time psychic is hailed for having predicted the Lindbergh kidnapping and the death of Hindenburg years after the facts), the search for the killer is steadily engrossing. But once the perp slips through official fingers and takes his revenge on Susan by striking at her weakest point, the case turns hackneyed, overwrought, and toothless to anybody who believes the claim that this will be only the first of Susan's adventures. Still, Glass, whose pseudonym allegedly conceals a bestselling author, knows how to keep you reading through all the complaints. (Kirkus Reviews)