The Postcard Killings

Grumpy New York detective Jacob Kanon refuses to respect foreign jurisdictions when his daughter and her husband are murdered on their London honeymoon, stage naked like a still-life. It proves the puzzling MO of a weekly series of murders, each in another European major city, each them predicted by a postcard sent to a local reporter with an appropriate but cryptic phrase, as turns out referring to a work of art in a local museum the staging refers to. Although officially just a foreigner without access, he can informally connect the dots with discrete help from some detectives and reporters faster then official channels can set up international collaboration. Comparing clues from everywhere, suspicion falls on the Dutch couple Pieter and Nienke Holl, but they fall victim themselves. They were seen with the American gap year couple Mac and Sylvia Randolph, who turn out to be Simon and Marina Haysmith, raised abusively by tycoon serial killer Simon senior, whom Jacob's divorced wife Valerie visits in jail, pretending to prepare a revision of his conviction. The duo's trail leads back to Baltic Russia for a bloody finale.