I feel a little guilty about not liking Ed Gorman better as a writer. It’s very obvious that he’s a liberal, but he works so darn hard to be fair to people he disagrees with—like Republicans and evangelical Christians—that I feel I ought to reciprocate in some way. But Blood Moon left me pretty cold.

This is the first book for a series character, Robert Payne, a former FBI profiler who now works as an investigative consultant from his home in Iowa. He’s approached by a woman who tells him she believes there’s a serial rapist and killer hunting little girls. Her own daughter, she says, was killed by this man, but the police and her family don’t believe the cases are connected. Payne agrees to look into it, and soon discovers that each of the murdered girls had visited the small town of New Hope, Iowa before her death. Payne goes to New Hope and begins making inquiries. He also meets the very attractive local (female) sheriff.

I found Blood Moon strangely bifurcated as a story. Part of it is a lyrical celebration of small town life and rural beauties and pleasures, in which the author clearly delights. The other is the depiction of profound, diabolical evil. It’s true that both of these things are aspects of life on earth, and that we live with them both, but I thought they could have been integrated better in this narrative. I sometimes thought I was reading two separate stories. Maybe that’s my own fault.

Gorman makes a yeoman effort—far better than most authors would bother—to make his characters, even the ones he disapproves of, three-dimensional. This even includes the Christian fundamentalists who are numbered among the suspects. Gorman’s ignorance of fundamentalist life, however, is pretty obvious. He thinks we talk of “saving” someone’s soul, as if we did it ourselves. He thinks the space at the front of the church on which the pastor stands is called the altar. Still, I didn’t get the impression he was suggesting that these particular (pretty scaly) evangelicals were typical.

There’s also the Improbably Kick-Butt Female Sheriff, who’s described as lovely and slender, but still able to beat a strong man at arm wrestling, multiple times. Seen that before, and I didn’t believe it then either.

On the other hand, I must admit he also had critical things to say about Dan Rather (the book was written in 1994) and aging hippies.

Nevertheless, it just didn’t work very well for me. I’ll admit the author tried. I can’t dis-recommend the book. Cautions for language, adult situations, and horrific sexual violence against children (reported but not actually depicted).