Book Critique 3: Pauwels Chapter One

I love your words, they’re beautiful. It’s like reading poetry. I actually don’t have enough good things to say about this chapter. If the rest of your book is like this, it should sell well. Three murders means serial killer and I love SK stories. Although a lot happened in the first chapter, you held my attention and I wish I could have turned the page.
Dialogue was realistic and you did a lot more showing than telling. I especially liked the SK scene where he carefully tucked the victim in bed. Says a lot about the killer.
One thing to be careful about: although your words are wonderfully perfect, some may take the average reader aback. For example, in your first sentence of chapter one, you use two words that are, by definition perfect, but have two meaning: efficiency and burden. I don’t know who your target audience is but you don’t want your readers running for the dictionary or worse, putting the book back on the bookstore shelf because they want an easier mystery to read. What I would do with efficiency is just add the word ‘apartment’ after it. However, if it’s any consolation, if I read the first line of this book, I’d buy it.
I love that you didn’t get carried away with description - you give needed description and not much more. However, you don’t describe what any of the characters look like. I don’t mind this myself, I form a view of the character right away but some readers love to know what color hair or eyes a character has or how tall they are. Just a thought.

POV: Love the POV of the killer. I think it’s popular in crime fiction today to have chapters in the killers POV and you do a nice job here. It’s creepy and that’s what you want. The female detective seems like a strong MC and drop hints about her to leave us curious. For example, “Dispatch radioed me at 12:56, and called you at 01:12, 01:17, 01:22..."” What was she doing? Or, “Seems you’re still operating on narc time.” Now we want to know about her past. This chapter is a perfect example of layering in backstory. Enough to want to know more, not enough to bore us.

Well done! Let me know when the book comes out, I’ll buy it.

Forty & Out
Chapter 1
A pale glow from the Tiffany lamp cast a muted kaleidoscope of color across the plain white walls of the efficiency, broken only by the dim shadow of a man with a burden. It took six steps to cross the apartment, but he was panting when he eased the limp body onto the bed. He bent down and slipped off the woman’s sandals before straightening her legs onto the flowered sheets. He folded her arms across her chest and tucked the matching comforter up around her chin, smoothing out the wrinkles in the blanket on all sides of the still form (loved this). The man stood over her, silent, watchful, until his breathing returned to normal. He double-checked all the window locks, closed the bathroom door, and replaced the CD in the stereo with one from his jacket pocket, careful to handle the disk by the edges. A final circuit of the room to wipe down any surfaces he noted touching earlier. In the kitchenette, he opened the oven door and turned the gas on high, blowing out the pilot light when the electronic ignition kicked in. One more glance at the unconscious figure on the bed and the man was gone, leaving only quiet music in his place. “Happy birthday to you…”

Detective Sergeant Veronica Jadzinski threaded her way through the crowd milling outside the Campus View Apartments on Bancroft Street in Toledo’s university district. Flashing emergency lights lit up the dark sky, the harsh glare adding a surreal glow to the unhappy faces of displaced residences forced out of bed in the middle of a sultry June night. She tossed the remnants of her convenience store coffee in a trash can by the door and took the stairs two at a time to the second floor unit. Inside was standard crime scene chaos. The small efficiency was crowded with five uniformed officers, a three-man forensics team, the coroner, and the head of Toledo Police Homicide, Lieutenant Adam Forester, who ignored her.
"Same cause of death as the first two?" Forester asked the shift sergeant.
"Apparently. The gas odor alerted the neighbor who called us. Lucky the whole place didn't go up. We found the rose on the night stand, same as before."
"Time of death?"
"About midnight, I'd guess, but we'll know better after the coroner gets through." Patrol Sergeant Theodore Baxter finished jotting his notes and stood posed for more questions. The crime scene work was nearly completed, but the paperwork would take several hours and his regular shift was long over. The officers gathered near the victim’s bed while Forester surveyed the room. It had taken Dispatch over an hour to locate Jadzinski, even at one in the morning, and another thirty minutes for her to arrive.
"Hey, Jadz. Hot date last night?" Baxter asked.
"Hardly." She felt her face redden.
“Can it,” Forester interrupted. “This isn’t a social gathering. Give her the rundown while I talk to the coroner.” He moved away, still not looking at his newest detective, and began quizzing the medical officer.
Jadz forced her attention back to Baxter’s briefing.
"Ignore him, he’s always grumpy when he’s dragged out of bed.” Baxter flipped through his pad. “At 12:37 a.m., Dispatch sent a crew to this address to check a report from an upstairs neighbor who smelled gas. The responding officers, Canter and Jimenez," he pointed to the two uniformed men at the door, "rousted the manager, who lives in the basement apartment, and he let them in. They found the victim, Marianne Summers, white female, age forty, in bed, the gas stove turned on high with the oven door standing open. Air conditioning was off and windows were closed. Canter shut off the gas and found an exhaust fan while Jimenez opened the windows and called for the paramedics. Life squad was dispatched at 12:54, but it was already too late. Dispatch radioed me at 12:56, and called you at 01:12, 01:17, 01:22..." (It took me a minute to get it but oh, it’s funny!)
"All right, Theo, you made your point," Jadz broke in. "Any prints?"
"Nothing we can use. A few smudges on the oven door, but not enough to trace."
"Okay with you if we move the body now, Detective?" Dr. Hanley, the Assistant County Coroner moved toward the officers. "I've done all I can here and it looks like Forensics is about finished. Lt. Forester said you would want the autopsy first thing."
"That's fine, Doc. Can you give us the cause of death?" Jadz managed a slight smile for the veteran doctor. "It appears gas was a factor, of course, but are there any signs of trauma?"
"Nothing obvious," he said. "The coffee cup on the night stand was half full, so I'm taking that in for tests. I'll let you know as soon as I have anything definite." He nodded to the paramedics and they moved the body off the bed and onto the gurney. "When will you be at the station?"
Jadz checked her watch. “Give me another hour, at least. If I'm not there, Dispatch will know where to find me." She and Theo continued their review of the crime scene. They moved around the small, tidy room – crisp lace curtains, neatly filled bookshelves, straight back chairs, no over-stuffed lounges or extra pillows, and nothing out of place. “No sign of a struggle,” she said.
"Nope.” Theo returned to his notes. “According to the neighbors, Summers was single, worked as a librarian at the university. Only lived here about six months. She didn’t have many visitors. A Mrs. Anna Parsons lives in the unit above this one, she called in the report. Parsons seems to know everything that goes on in the building. She stated Miss, excuse me, ‘Ms.’ Summers usually watched the late news, the Letterman monologue, then went to bed. Parsons can hear the television from upstairs."
"Any change in that routine last night?"
"At 10:10 p.m., and Parsons noted the time particularly because it was the first commercial break in ER, she heard the door buzzer, followed by voices in Summers' apartment. The conversation continued for some time. In the middle of the Letterman monologue, about 11:40, the visitor left. Parsons didn't see anyone, although she did look out the front window when she heard the door. The awning could have blocked her view if the subject was on foot and didn't cross the street."
"Okay. Finish your report and have it on my desk as soon as you can. I'm going to stop down to talk to the apartment manager about securing the apartment for a few days. I'll see you at the station later." Jadz saw Forester waiting impatiently by the door, looking even more disheveled and annoyed than usual. Steeling herself for more unpleasantness, she approached her new supervisor.
“Crime scenes get cold fast.” Forester glared at her. “Seems you’re still operating on narc time.”
“I was unavoidably detained,” Jadz said, trying not to sound defensive. “I’m here now, and everything is going smoothly, so you can back off.”
He grunted. “It’s your case until I decide otherwise.” They stepped aside to make room for the gurney bearing the shrouded victim to squeeze through. “Number three, it seems. What are you going to do about it?” Forester followed the medics out the door, not waiting for a response.
Jadz grimaced, forced to admit at least to herself, I have no idea.