cover image The Stranger

The Stranger

Eric James Fullilove. Spectra Books, $5.99 (256pp) ISBN 978-0-553-57576-7

Though its world-building is inconsistent and its sex scenes overly gory, Fullilove's sequel to Circle of One brims with telepathy, intelligent automatons and futuristic religious cults. Jenny Sixa, now a rich, bored socialite, returns to telepathic forensic work when her old friend L. A. Detective Derrick Trent hands her a puzzle: adolescent boys are turning up dead with their brains wiped clean of memories. Jenny is happy to have something to distract her from the horrifying nightmares that a serial rapist is broadcasting directly into her slumbering psyche. She teams up with her former partner, the personable automaton Didi, as well as a confused priest and a crack SWAT team to tackle The Stranger and other vicious predators. Fullilove's futuristic dystopia includes several nicely handled appeals for racial harmony and some intriguing speculations about how future technology may change religion. (Nov.)