Writers like Patricia Cornwell, Kathy Reichs, and James Patterson have made careers writing about serial killers, to the point where the saga of the multiple murderer has practically become a genre unto itself. Ontario writer Cathy Vasas-Brown covers much of the same ground in a fresh way with her first novel, Every Wickedness.

Beth Wells, a San Francisco designer, is hunting the elusive Spiderman, a serial killer who has murdered several women and left them draped on tourist landmarks around the city. One of the victims was Wells’s roommate. Now the killer is stalking Wells herself. The third-person narrative alternates between Beth and Jim Kearns, a San Francisco detective on the case, with a few intriguing chapters written from the perspective of the Spiderman himself.

Vasas-Brown makes the task of trying to guess the killer’s identity pleasantly difficult, especially when the investigators make up a list of likely suspects. The book also provides plenty of background information on real-life serial killers. Readers learn about the Zodiac killer who terrorized San Francisco in the 1960s and how fibre evidence led to the 1981 arrest of Wayne Williams for a series of killings in Atlanta. Even Paul Bernardo, Southern Ontario’s own serial killer, gets a mention. The research is dropped in seamlessly and never slows down the story.

The book’s only weakness is its portrayal of San Francisco, which reads at times like descriptions from a tourist brochure. Such well-known spots as Coit Tower, Fisherman’s Wharf, and Lombard Street never really come alive, but thankfully setting is not the main point here. Vasas-Brown’s writing is smooth and effortless enough to keep even readers who shy away from the blood and gore interested to the last page.