Erik Rickstad has published a sequel to his popular crime thriller “The Silent Girls,” which introduced the characters Frank Rath and Sonja Test, detectives in the small Vermont town of Canaan.

In his latest work, “The Names of Dead Girls,” (William Morrow, 434 pages) Frank Rath is called out of retirement to serve as lead detective alongside Sonja Test as they try to track a serial killer who is torturing

young girls.

Rath suspects this may be the work of Ned Preacher, a serial rapist and murderer who has learned how to work the system and has been released from prison.

To make matters worse, Frank suspects that the homicidal Preacher is stalking his adopted daughter, Rachel, whose parents were murdered by Preacher many years ago.

Rickstad writes a page-turner that will keep the reader guessing in this deftly plotted crime novel. The author notes how rural areas can be deceptively dangerous.

To borrow a line from Vermont’s poet laureate, Robert Frost: “The woods are lovely, dark and deep…”

But beneath the sylvan beauty of rural Vermont, there

is a dark and deep malevolent predator who is stalking and torturing young women.

For those who like a detective story which will keep the reader on the edge of his seat, Erik Rickstad’s “The Names of Dead Girls” is a haunting novel.