Two decades ago, the Snow White Killer terrorized Music City with 10 grisly murders of beautiful young women — each with raven-black hair, pale skin and ruby lips — their throats slashed from ear to ear. The villain was never apprehended.

Fast-forward to the present and 14, J.T. Ellison's second novel, where four more young women are murdered. The killer's modus operandi suggests the Snow White Killer has resurfaced. Or is a copycat responsible? As even more murders occur, the story resembles a Shakespearean tragedy in which bodies pile up like cordwood. Homicide Detective Taylor Jackson and her love interest, John Baldwin, a profiler for the FBI, seek to stop the sociopath before he strikes again.

Ellison's third novel, Judas Kiss, will be published in January.

— ROY E. PERRY, FOR THE TENNESSEAN