The Bait

At the outset of Delvey’s ho-hum second thriller featuring Eve Wren (after The Seven), the British prosecutor is being harangued by true crime buff Frank Tooley, who hopes she’ll look into a case from her days as a defense attorney. Frank maintains that Eve’s former client, Stephen Sheridan, was wrongly convicted in 2018 for falsely imprisoning a 10-year-old girl, and implores Eve to reinvestigate. Meanwhile, Eve looks into the death of a woman named Becca Farrow, who drowned in the Thames after falling from Southwark Bridge. Becca’s godmother is Eve’s supervisor, and she insists the death couldn’t have been suicide. Eve soon discovers a pattern of women falling off bridges across London, with evidence pointing toward a troubled young man named Bradley Aspen, who’s shielded by diplomatic immunity as the son of a U.S. Embassy official. Delvey kicks things off with an effective opening tease that features Eve nearly falling to her death from Waterloo Bridge, but contrived coincidences and a clumsy interweaving of the main plot threads dull the suspense. It’s a disappointment. Agent: Marilia Savvides, Plot Agency. (Aug.)