“Some men and women, she reflected, fell into their proper profession, the only one they were eminently crafted to do. And this man was one such. Highly intelligent without the spark of genius, well educated without being entrapped by his learning, nigh infinitely patient, rational to the core yet subtle, empathetic when it suited him, and endowed with an analytical brain. A policeman by nature who might successfully have done a dozen other things for a living, but had lit upon the one he was made for.”

It’s August 1969, and police Captain Carmine Del­monico is away on a family vacation. Back at home, in the sleepy college town of Holloman, Connecticut, first one, then two anonymous male corpses turn up—emaciated and emasculated. After connecting the victims to four other bodies, Sergeant Delia Carstairs and Lieutenant Abe Goldberg realize that Holloman has a psychopathic killer on the loose. Luckily, Carmine’s beloved wife Desdemona sends him home from vacation early.

Carmine’s team begins to circle a trio of eccentrics, who share family ties, painful memories, and a dark past. They readily admit to knowing all the victims, but their stories keep changing. It’s awkward that one of them is a new friend of Delia’s, a woman she recently befriended along with the respected and innovative head of the mental hospital, who has been rehabilitating one very difficult patient to be her trusted assistant. When another vicious murder rocks Holloman, Carmine realizes that two killers are at large with completely different modus operandi. Like Delia, he finds this case too close to home when he barely escapes being next on the body count. Sud­denly the summer isn’t so sleepy anymore.

Colleen McCullough’s riveting Carmine Delmo­nico books take you back to a time when detectives relied mainly on logic, intelligence, and instinct—and a good home-cooked meal or breakfast at Malvolio’s with colleagues. Sins of the Flesh is her finest mystery yet, pitting her beloved hero against every cop’s nightmare scenario in a plot that turns on the science that McCullough herself knows so well.

Recommended to book clubs by 0 of 1 members.