Amazon.com Review
Nobody writes better than Jan Burke about the real world of print journalism, and that aspect of her latest Irene Kelly mystery is as strong as ever. The tensions of being the wife of a cop and continuing to work as a crime reporter in the Southern California desert city of Las Piernas have increased with each big story Irene covers: it's almost as though her associates are waiting for her to make some mistake, to fumble a story. When an edgy, rebellious teenage girl asks her to look for her missing mother, Irene crosses the path of a very dangerous serial killer--Nicholas Parrish. He is one of those totally anonymous but enormously gifted and resourceful villains found only in fiction. Parrish kills women who happen to look like Irene (and his abusive mother), and attracts devoted disciples to his grisly cause. Because of Irene's involvement, several more lives are damaged or endangered, and the strain takes its toll on the reporter's mental stability.
Burke is such a fine, realistic writer that she can tread her way carefully across territory already well covered by Patricia Cornwell, Jeffery Deaver, Thomas Harris, et al. and still find something new to say about ritual murder and forensic science. But her real talent is bringing to full, instant life a remarkable woman--and the city she lives and works in. --Dick Adler
From Publishers Weekly
In her seventh outing (after Liar, 1998), journalist Irene Kelly is part of the investigative team on the hunt for serial killer Nicholas Parrish's many victims. Their graves are in California's Sierra Nevada mountains, and Parrish, having entered a plea bargain, is there too, leading the team to the women's corpses in exchange for a life sentence instead of the death penalty. But Parrish has planned a surprise or two. When a grave explodes, most of the team are killed, Irene flees, and the killer escapes. Back home, Irene continues to work at the behest of Gillian Sayre, the daughter of one victim. Her hunt for Parrish is made considerably easier by his growing obsession with her. A cunning psychopath with a calm demeanor, Parrish heavily resembles Hannibal Lecter. Rather than eat his victims, however, he tortures and dismembers them. Burke spends the first third of the novel overbuilding Parrish's reputation, so by the time she actually depicts his depravity the horrors are a bit anticlimatic. Later, the killer's mysterious accomplice, "The Moth," will be too easily identified by readers, especially after Burke unsuccessfully labors to mask his/her gender. And Parrish is only generically, not memorably twisted. Though Irene and other characters are well wrought and realistic, too many red herrings are introduced, all meant to distract the reader from the true evil, which, once fully revealed, just isn't quite evil enough. (Sept.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.