βSome 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.β
Itβs August 1969, and police Captain Carmine DelΒmonico 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 upβemaciated 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, Carmineβs beloved wife Desdemona sends him home from vacation early.
Carmineβs 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. Itβs awkward that one of them is a new friend of Deliaβs, 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. SudΒdenly the summer isnβt so sleepy anymore.
Colleen McCulloughβs riveting Carmine DelmoΒnico books take you back to a time when detectives relied mainly on logic, intelligence, and instinctβand a good home-cooked meal or breakfast at Malvolioβs with colleagues. Sins of the Flesh is her finest mystery yet, pitting her beloved hero against every copβs nightmare scenario in a plot that turns on the science that McCullough herself knows so well.
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