Deborah Ellison, a police officer’s daughter, is found dead outside Winsome Bay, Wisconsin, her body covered with wounds and tattoos, and her hand amputated. She had moved to Chicago years earlier, cutting off all contact with her parents and friends, and the Winsome police are puzzled as to why she returned home only to be murdered. But when other young women are found murdered in a similar fashion, it becomes apparent that a serial killer has begun a bloody campaign.
At first, no connection is apparent between the victims—some lived as far away as Chicago—but when Chicago detective James Mangan joins the case, he recognizes that at least two of the women are connected to American Forum Magazine. Mangan’s entrance gives author James DeVita the chance to up the literary tenor of the novel. The detective, who reads a lot, ruminates on Shakespeare quotations every time he sees a new corpse. Those that most frequently come to Mangan’s mind are from Titus Andronicus, in which both the heroine’s hands are amputated.
For a while, these literary allusions work well and add depth to the book, but as the action ramps up, they begin to get in the way—especially since Mangan can’t stop quoting Shakespeare (or Herman Melville) even in the midst of a shootout. This constant intrusion isn’t necessary, because Mangan is so verbally adept that he doesn’t need to rely on the Bard to get his point across. In one of the book’s best scenes, he faces down a barroom full of small-town bullies with a threat delivered as a delicious soliloquy. Watching him tear into the chief Bubba with words alone is even more effective than the punch he later delivers.
Given his verbal tics and solid detecting skills, Mangan makes a fine protagonist, but in A Winsome Murder DeVita introduces another cop who could give him a run for his money: Officer Michele Schaefer, of the Winsome Police Department. Although only a small-town cop, Schaefer—who first identified Deborah’s body—has cojones to match her big-city counterpart.