Sex and the single therapist: The Halo Effect by M.J. Rose

Start with a series of ritualistic murders of prostitutes; throw in a beautiful, wildly successful prostitute who's written a tell-all book about her rich and famous clients; add a sex therapist whose explorations into her clients' dark sides has led to her own sexual frigidity; and an exotic NYC detective who cooks, composes and plays jazz and you've got The Halo Effect, the latest thriller by M.J. Rose.

Sex therapist Dr. Morgan Snow becomes alarmed when her client Cleo Thane goes missing shortly after the police have found the first in a series of dead prostitutes. Detective Neal Jordain has asked Morgan for help in profiling the murderer but he can't take time off from his investigation of the murders to find Cleo, who may or may not be one of the muderder's victims. Morgan, for her part, can't reveal what she's learned from Cleo and her unpublished manuscript without breaking patient/client confidentiality. So Morgan decides to go undercover.

The whodunit comes second to the sexual quirks Morgan uncovers as she races to find the missing Cleo: Astute readers will solve the crime sometime around the halfway point. At times the catalogue of fantasies and fetishes reads like so much sexual boilerplate. But the book picks up in the second half, if you've got the stamina for it.