cover image Death Among Strangers

Death Among Strangers

Deidre S. Laiken. MacMillan Publishing Company, $0 (258pp) ISBN 978-0-02-567400-4

Working from a real-life crime, Laiken, author of the nonfiction Lovestrong, explores the psychological makeup of a child murderer in this first novel set in a small town in upstate New York. The discovery of the body of a teenage girl in Bakersville poses two immediate mysteries for police officer George Murphy: Who was she, and who killed her? Manhattan-trained and recently divorced, George calls on his girlfriend, social worker Elizabeth Kern, to help track down leads. Elizabeth, meanwhile, finds herself powerfully drawn to a stranger in town, a professional photographer who rides a big Harley-Davidson. As George becomes more involved in the case, Elizabeth takes her chances with the strange photographer, and the novel's focus moves away from the murder to her relationships with the two men, with the underlying question of whether she will be killed too. Laiken's characterization is consistent and the erotic element interesting, but the tale's resolution is too far removed from the original problem to offer much surprise or satisfaction. (March 25)