The Killing Storm (Sarah Armstrong Novels)
When someone kills prize longhorn bulls on ranches outside Houston, marking African symbols on their hides, Texas Ranger profiler Sarah Armstrong gets the case. But she’s drawn more to the kidnapping of a four-year-old boy whose young mother seems oddly unaffected by her son’s disappearance (FBI profiler David Garrity, Sarah’s lover, asks for her help on the case). At the same time, a category 4 hurricane, Juanita, is stalling over the Gulf and gaining strength as it heads for Galveston. The intertwining of the two cases may strain credulity, but the resolution does not, as Sarah frantically seeks answers, in the process making a wrenching decision about whether to leave her 12-year-old daughter, Maggie, who’s already lost one parent, in order to face death at the height of the storm for the sake of another child. This third entry (after Blood Lines, 2009) leaves open plenty of issues, both personal and professional, for Sarah, guaranteeing continuing interest in the series. Solid crime fiction with a real feel for the humanity of the characters. --Michele Leber