It is a hot and humid August in 1969 and Police Captain
Carmine Delminco is off on vacation with his wife.
Normally summers would be quiet in the small college town
of Holloman, Connecticut, but new evidence and bodies
reveal that the small police department may have a real
worry on their hands.
Is it a dangerous coincidence or not that the bodies of a
number of unidentified emasculated men who have tragically
died of starvation have been found? Do they have a serial
killer in their midst? The premeditation and total lack of
compassion has Lieutenant Abraham Goldberg suspecting they
have a psychopathic killer on their hands. Delia is not so
sure, but if it is the work of a psychopath, who is it?
Meanwhile, the eccentric Sergeant Delia Carstairs finds her
search for any clues to her "Shadow Women" case elusive.
Where did those six women go? The only point of
satisfaction in her life right now is the new friendship
that she has recently formed with Jessica Wainfleet and Ivy
Ramsbottom since June. They love getting together and
having a drink and intelligent conversations. Meeting
these two intelligent and independent spinsters helps
restore Delia's spirits from the frustration she
experiences in trying to solve her case and she is very
protective of them. Through them, Delia meets some
strange, yet very intriguing people. Do they know secrets
that could lead to the killer?
SINS OF THE FLESH by well-known author Colleen McCullough
opens with a horrifying story of a man who is being kept in
a cell and only given water to drink while slowly being
starved to death. From this shocking start, the reader is
instantly pulled into the mystery in this fifth book by
McCullough featuring the intelligent and astute Police
Captain Carmine Delminco. He may be away, but his small
team is left struggling with the August heat and humidity
and trying to come to grips with very unusual murders.
Fortunately, this interesting protagonist unexpectedly
returns and helps Abe and Delia as they sift through
evidence and interview people of interest.
True to McCullough's famous style and her scientific
background as a Neurophysiologist, SINS OF THE FLESH has
such a strong degree of realism to it that it makes for a
highly absorbing story right from the beginning to its
astonishing whodoneit. While some of McCullough's
characters are strange and many are flamboyant, they are
all easily visualized and are authentic in their actions
and motivations. As SINS OF THE FLESH is set back in
1969, the emphasis is the story is definitely on skilled
police work and intuitive and strategic thinking which
many readers enjoy as they attempt to figure out who has
committed the murders.
SINS OF THE FLESH is also easily read as a stand-alone
book, but I am sure new fans will definitely want to read
all the books in the series about the intriguing Captain
Carmine Delminco and his very small but diverse team. Full
of heart wrenching secrets, powerful action and multi-
layered mysteries, fans of crime fiction be warned! You
will have a very difficult time indeed putting down SINS OF
THE FLESH before its very dramatic conclusion!
“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.
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