The Pawn by Steven James

The Pawn took me a while to get into. It was sitting in my office for the longest time, quietly letting me ignore it. Now that I finished it, I'm interested in the further adventures of FBI agent Patrick Bowers.

In this novel, Bowers is investigating a serial killer who goes by the name the Illusionist. With each killing, the Illusionist leaves a white pawn chess piece.

This book reads like an episode of CSI. You won't know who-dun-it until the very end. There weren't any language problems (swearing) that I can remember. Some of the imagery of the killings are pretty gruesome, but nothing like what you see on television. And it leaves us on a nice cliff-hanger.

Seeing as this is called a Patrick Bowers thriller, we can assume there will be more stories from Steven James.

If you like novels where you're trying to solve the crime before the main character, The Pawn should be one you pick up and read at least twice - so you can go back and look for clues you missed.