I give myself one last look in the mirror to make sure nothing screams computational biologist masquerading as delivery man who is secretly releasing an untested genetically modified microbe into the general populace. [loc. 2982]
I didn't like this quite as much as The Naturalist, maybe simply because it has a less appealing setting -- Los Angeles rather than Montana. There's an urban myth about the Toy Man, who bestows gifts on good children but punishes the bad. The story is only current in specific areas, which tend to be Black and underprivileged, mirroring a pattern of abductions and disappearances barely acknowledged by the police. Cray believes the Toy Man story may be based on fact, and sets out to find this mythical figure using computational biology, social engineering and sheer bloodymindedness. Meanwhile, he's increasingly uncomfortable with the ways in which his research is being used by the government, and as the story progresses, he begins to wonder if he's attracting the wrong sort of attention from powerful individuals. On the other hand, nobody has pursued these cases until now ...
Some fascinating science, or pseudoscience, here -- do serial killers really have 'peculiar olfactory functions'? -- and a gruesome but highly ingenious method of retrieving samples from a burial ground when the police don't want you there. Theo is cheeringly open-minded about the importance of religious / superstitious belief as motivation for human behaviour, and not above facilitating a kind of vigilante justice when official channels fail to provide it.
Despite the gruesome crimes (details of which are not dwelt upon) and the depressing misery of human evil, I did find this very readable: I'll probably read more of the series, but not quite yet.
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