Block, Lawrence. All the flowers are dying. New York: William Morrow, 2005. ISBN 0-06-019831-1.

Summary: The sixteenth in a series that is running out of steam, this novel has an over-familiar plot structure: The hero (a retired and burned-out policeman), his lover, and some of his close friends are threatened by a psychopathic killer that he pursued unsuccessfully in an earlier book in the series. The hero infers the danger, draws up his lines of defense, but fails to prevent the ingenious villian's attack. Intercepting the villain at the last possible moment, the hero kills him remorselessly, but at considerable physical and psychological cost to himself.

Block renders the villian's nefarious activities and bizarre ways of thinking with his usual skill, and perhaps a bit more, making the tired denouement even more of a disappointment.