In 2050

some American Studies PhD student is going to write a dissertation that will finally explain for once and for all why late 20th- and early 21st-century American fiction is so full of insanely implausible and highly stylized serial-killer thrillers. In the meantime I have a high tolerance for them; last night I started reading Jonathan Santlofer's latest, was very mildly put off in the opening pages of The Killing Art (to be published in November) by a bit too much lecturing about the New York School painters and then ended up completely caught up in his story-telling--the next thing I knew it was very, very late and I was turning the last page. Santlofer doesn't have a truly macabre imagination, you never really feel scared here (partly because the violence is so baroque and over-the-top), but his main character is appealing and the whole thing is just done to a high standard--he's a more than competent prose writer, the New York and art scene stuff is for once wholly convincing and he's got an excellent sense of pacing.