Dancing With the Virgins

September 3, 2001
After an atmospheric beginning, Booth settles down to a lengthy investigation marked by long stretches of unrelieved tedium in his second crime novel (after 2000's Black Dog). On Ringham Moor, in a remote area of England, a prehistoric ring of stones known as the Nine Virgins stands guardian over mankind's darkest secrets. To this lonely area comes Jenny Weston, a young cyclist. Entranced by the scenery's eerie ambience, Jenny doesn't hear the stealthy approach of a silent stalker, knife at the ready, who graphically dispatches her and artfully arranges her body to simulate a woman dancing. The killing seems singularly motiveless, and Diane Fry and Ben Cooper, the detectives assigned to the case, are an odd couple: Fry is a feminist and Cooper a beer-drinking sports enthusiast with a taste for records from the '80s. When they discover that another woman, Maggie Crew, was attacked by a knife-wielding assailant not half a mile from Ringham Moor, the plot appears to thicken. Unfortunately, the tone of the investigation is so matter-of-fact that the mystery fails to grip. Moreover, the characters are opaque, often one-dimensional, and the ultimate revelation of the murderer comes as a distinct anticlimax. The author seems more concerned with a welter of subplots, one involving a farmer running a dog-fighting ring and his bête noire, an animal rights activist intent on mayhem. Booth is more successful at evoking the desolate moor, with its windswept cairns, stone circles and prehistoric burial grounds. But for most mystery fans, the mix will fail to gel. Agent, Teresa Chris.