False Witness by Andrew Grant

Cooper Devereaux has personal issues.  He's been living with his seven year old daughter and her mother since they reconnected about a year ago.  But Alexandra isn't sure she is ready for the next step or that she ever will be.  Cooper's father was a policeman like Cooper is, and there's evidence that the father may have been a killer.  Is that the sort of thing that can be passed down?  Can she live with that for her daughter and any future children?

But a policeman rarely can wait until personal issues get fixed and Cooper is no exception.  A young girl's body has been found, wrapped up like a present.  She was about to turn twenty-one.  The young woman had come back to town about a year ago and was turning her life around after a bad boyfriend had upended it.  Now she is dead and Cooper and his partner are assigned the case.

Another body is soon found, wrapped like the first.  Like the first, it is a young woman about to have her twenty-first birthday.  Another thing ties the women together.  In the last year, both have had a baby that they gave up for adoption.  Who is killing them?

Andrew Grant is an English author although this book is set in Birmingham, Alabama.  He is the brother of Lee Child and sometimes writes with him.  This is the third Cooper Devereaux novel in the series.  The interplay of Cooper's personal problems and the search to find a serial killer is interesting and moves the plot and pace along.  Readers will be cheering for Cooper on both fronts as he seems a good man who is forever fighting his past.  This book is recommended for mystery readers.