Amazon.com Review
Like her creator, Anna Salter, Dr. Michael Stone is a top forensic psychologist who specializes in sex offenders. In her second excursion into this world of deviance and danger, after the memorable Shiny Water, Dr. Stone finds that working out why a spectacularly vicious sexual predator commits his crimes won't necessarily protect her when a quirk in the legal system gets him out of prison. The smart and vulnerable Dr. Stone may be Salter's alter ego, but the radiantly evil Alex B. Willy is her most impressive achievement in this strong story. --Dick Adler
From Kirkus Reviews
Second thriller featuring female Vermont forensic psychologist Dr. Michael Stone (Shiny Water, 1997). Dr. Stone, a specialist in child abuse and domestic violence, helped put away Alex B. Willy, a child molester whoduring an earlier interview not admissible as evidencerevealed to Stone a whole batch of crimes he wasn't charged with. Though sentenced to 30 years, Willy has now been released on the technicality that the child witnesses in his trial had been overly suggestible. Clearly, Willy cant let Stone survive knowing what she knows about him, and, indeed, amused messages from him start popping up on her E-mailmessages that point to Willy having bugged her office and having taped her interviews with clients. Willy zeroes in on what he sees as Stone's psychic fault lines, which include the death of her daughter Jordan by SIDS while at day-care. Stone, meanwhile, hires a retired FBI agent to sweep her office for bugs. He finds nothing, but Willy keeps right on sending incredibly up-to-the-moment messages. What to do? Instead of being a sitting duck, Stone wonders whether she should go after Willy herself. At the same time, shes beleaguered by Camille, a deeply unstable rape-and-torture victim who now protects herself with Keeter, a dangerous Rottweiler attack dog. When Camille learns of the threat against Stone, she begins to shadow Stone secretly, with the intention of protecting her, an idea that rapidly proves more hindrance than help. The outcome, a face-off with a psychopathic pedophile, is as predictable as a heroine tied to railroad tracks. Still, there are shocks here, and each plot twist turns on a kink in an insanely brilliant mind. Not Thomas Harris and The Silence of the Lambs by a long shot, but a book steadily gripping in its psychology, despite an overly familiar villain. -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
