The Jackal Man

By Kate Ellis
This is the fifteenth book in the series about Detective Wesley Peterson. It is the first book I have read by this author.

The story involves two time frames. One story is about a young governess who comes to work for a widower with a grown son and two young children.   She has an affair with her employer and becomes pregnant.  He insists she give the child up.  She takes drastic measures to get her revenge on the man and his son.

The second story takes place in the present. A serial killer is killing young women. The attacker is reporting to be wearing a dog mask.

In another story a young woman has inherited a "castle".  It was the estate where the governess worked. The house is full of Egyptian antiquities. The woman asks an archeologist to come and give her an idea of the value of the collection.  As Eqypt is not his area of expertise, he calls in another colleague to document the collection.

As the murders continue the attacker is  starting to mimic Egyptian burial rites, cutting out bodily organs and wrapping the victims in linen sheets.

The police try to determine if the attacker is a local skirt chaser or a researcher working on a biography of the Egyptian antiquities collector.  The police find out that the modern murders are mimicing four murders carried out on the estate in the time of the governess.A lot of evidence seems to be pointing to the researcher especially when they find he has a book with sketches of the four women killed years before.  The police also enlist the services of a profiler.

While Detective Peterson is trying to catch the killer, a former boss of his comes and seeks his assistance in tracking down an Egyptian antiquities theft ring.   This seems a minor concern to him given all the murders but he tries to help his boss.  It turns out that the researcher was actually stealing items from the estate and planning to sell them.

The book explores the idea of evil.It has many plot twists and then a surprise ending with the appearance of someone who was thought dead.    The ending is very disquieting.

In my opinion this is one of the better mystery writers.  There is more meat to this story than some and I don't like the stories which get tied up in romantic entanglements.