Glass Houses

Jane Haddam

Book 22 of Gregor Demarkian

Language: English

Publisher: Minotaur Books

Published: Apr 17, 2007

Pages: 433
ABC: 21

Description:

For over a year, Philadelphia has been plagued by a serial killer dubbed the Plate Glass Killer by the media.  But finally, the police think they've caught a break - a man has been arrested at the site of the most recent murder, covered in the victim's blood.  The man taken into custody is Henry Tyder, the scion of one of the most socially prominent families on Philadelphia's Main Line, a family that possesses the largest tracts of real estate in the city.  He's also a hopeless alcoholic, frequently homeless and often estranged from his family.      Although Tyder has apparently confessed to the crime, his attorney believes him to be too disordered to be capable of actually committing the crimes and asks Gregor Demarkian, retired head of the FBI's Behavioral Sciences Unit, to look into the case.  Gregor, however, has other things on his mind - after having been away for nearly a year without a word to him, his live-in girlfriend, Bennis Hannaford, has returned to Cavanaugh Street. And everyone seems to have seen her but Gregor. While he waits for Bennis to finally appear, Gregor finds himself enmeshed in complex case of the Plate Glass Killer.  Specifically, what would have drive Tyder to confess to crimes he was seemingly incapable of committing and, more importantly, if Tyder isn't the killer, then who really is behind the murders of the Plate Glass Killer. ** ### From Publishers Weekly In the 22nd Gregor Demarkian book (after 2006's *Hardscrabble Road*), Haddam as usual effortlessly melds a puzzling mystery—a baffling serial murder case in Philadelphia—with the latest developments in the romance between her FBI profiler hero and his longtime lover, Bennis Hannaford. The perpetrator, named the Plate Glass Killer, targets unattractive middle-aged women, leaving their bodies in alleys, their faces mutilated by glass. The body count has reached double digits by the time Gregor (known popularly as the Armenian-American Hercule Poirot) is consulted, and he finds that the official investigation is a mess due to hostility among the senior detectives. The resolution may be a tad far-fetched, but the intelligent, thoughtful prose elevates this twisty whodunit far above most other contemporary traditional mysteries. The author also deserves plaudits for making the long and complex Gregor-Bennis relationship accessible to first-time readers. *(Apr.)* Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. ### From Booklist Former FBI profiler Gregor Demarkian returns in the twenty-first installment of this popular series, which still feels fresh and exciting after all these years. This time Demarkian is hired to help prove the innocence of a man who has confessed to being Philadelphia's infamous Plate Glass Killer. Haddam asks some big questions--What kind of person becomes a serial killer? What kind of person claims to be one when he isn't?--and she turns finding the answers into a journey that is both exciting and thoughtful, thanks largely to the insight and charisma of her hero. *David Pitt* *Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved*