In British author Lawrence's gory, gripping follow-up to his well-received debut, The Dead Sit Round in a Ring
(2004), series heroine Det. Stella Mooney must solve a series of sadistic murders. Young London women are being stripped, bound, gagged, then cut repeatedly before being dispatched with a slash to the throat. At first the victims—Janis Parker, an employee of an upscale fashion magazine; Nesta Cameron, who worked at a lifestyle design company; and Mandy Wallace, an exotic dancer at the Kandy Kave—seem linked only by a cocaine habit. Then Mooney and her colleagues begin to realize that the killers, as disturbing and memorable as any in crime fiction, like to strip as they perform their handiwork. Lawrence gives London a kind of Martin Scorsese treatment—this is not the city of the Tower and the titled but the neon-splashed world of pimps, squatters and drug dealers. Readers unfamiliar with Stella and her setting may find her character a bit underdeveloped, and at least one subplot—involving her love life—distracts from an otherwise addictive story. (June 6)
