The Last Commandment
-
- $12.99
-
- $12.99
Publisher Description
A Scotland Yard detective tracks a serial killer from London to New York City
Christmastime in London. When three seemingly unconnected victims are murdered with matching sequential Roman numerals carved into their foreheads, Metropolitan Police Commander Austin Grant finds his answer in one of the last places he’d expect: the Holy Bible. Each of the deaths correspond to a transgression of one of the Ten Commandments, and Grant must find the killer before the remaining Commandments are commemorated with homicides.
Unfortunately for Grant, the next victim with a number on their forehead turns up not in London, but across the pond at the iconic St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City, turning this English murder case into a transatlantic manhunt spanning two global metropolises, each with its own rich history and culture. Commander Grant must team up with a charming NYPD detective named John Frankel, as well as his own estranged daughter Rachel—a cunning investigative reporter with conflicting feelings about her father.
The Last Commandment is the third novel by acclaimed screenwriter and producer Scott Shepherd, whose decades of television writing experience shine through in the swift pace and character-driven storytelling of this devilishly fun, page-turning mystery. Flipping the “buddy cop” story on its head with a touch of Old Testament fatalism, this twisty tale leads from the seedy back-alleys of Piccadilly to the Grande Dame hotels of Midtown Manhattan and back again.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Shepherd (Descending Son) makes his mystery debut with a disappointing series launch in which Scotland Yard's Cmdr. Austin Grant, who's on the verge of retirement, investigates three related murders. The victims—an Oxford professor, a sculptor, and a former rock star—are linked only by their killer's m.o.; each was garroted before a knife was used to mark their foreheads. For the academic, the murderer left one vertical slash, adding one more for each additional victim. Grant's brother, a colleague of the professor, notes that the musician's band was named the Blasphemers, and theorizes that the mutilations are connected to the 10 Commandments. The Commandment Killer later strikes in New York City, impaling a priest on a cross in Saint Patrick's Cathedral. That development sends Grant overseas, where he teams with the NYPD and reunites with his estranged daughter. The predictable plot builds to an unsurprising reveal. Clichéd prose ("Rachel realized she didn't have to go all the way down to Palisades Park to know that she was falling in love") is also a negative. Few genre fans will look forward to the sequel.