Detective Gabriel McRay is still struggling to face the past but now woman are turning up dead in Los Angeles, with no clues. But then one woman escapes, Tara Samuels. Can she help find the guilty person.
An interesting mystery/thriller
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In her second book of the McRay series, Laurie Steven's mystery of the main character's emotional trauma is just as terrifying and tragic as the murders to be solved. This ability to allow the sub-plot to equal the main plot of the story, without creating a weakness in structure, is not an easy task. And yet, Steven's accomplishes it flawlessly, rewarding the reader again with a fast, paced story and the confidence that they are safe in an accomplished writer's hands. She ends the book, as all books written as a series should end, with the reader wanting more.- D. J. Adamson







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LA Sheriff's Department homicide detective Gabriel McRay picks up a case with a serial killer using wire to garrot his beautiful female victims. This psychological thriller continues to delve deeply into the detective's past and his relationship with Dr. Ming Li, pathologist at the coroner's office. The case itself follows one victim who managed to escape in the first chapter, as well as other victims who are not so lucky. It veers into the kinky sex underground of LA.
I finished book 1 in the series, and plunged immediately into book 2. Well written, well plotted, and highly recommended. Fascinating! ( )

Los Angeles has been described in many a missive with a dark under-belly. In the second novel featuring Detective Gabriel McRay we are certainly provided with a front row seat in the roller coaster ride as it plunges us through the dimly light ride of a life time – just don’t take your hands of the guard rail or you might be featured as the next victim.
Struggling to hold his personal life together and maintain somewhat of a relationship with the beautiful medical examiner, Ming Li, McRay never seems to put a foot right, sleeping with witnesses is a relationship killer and tends to get one disciplined by the superiors on the force too. Ming is essential to the investigation however as a link to several tortured and deceased females comes to light when one of the intended victims escapes and is able to provide the police with details they would never have had otherwise.
Walking a tightrope on a precipitous career path and delving into his own psyche with the aid of the police psychiatrist McRay pushes forward with all the tact of a bull in a china shop following a path that leads to a super-secret sex club where members routinely engage in masochistic habits, all laid out in graphic Super 8mm as the end rushes at us in a crescendo of wild sex, dead bodies and betrayal.
Stevens has once again brought us to the edge of our seats with her gift for psychological suspense and leaves us scarred forever. Our relationship with her is tenuous at best, but like Ming is drawn to the tortured soul of McCray, we too are drawn in to the heat, better to be burned than to have never known the flame.
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Los Angeles has been described in many a missive with a dark under-belly. In the second novel featuring Detective Gabriel McRay we are certainly provided with a front row seat in the roller coaster ride as it plunges us through the dimly light ride of a life time – just don’t take your hands of the guard rail or you might be featured as the next victim.
Struggling to hold his personal life together and maintain somewhat of a relationship with the beautiful medical examiner, Ming Li, McRay never seems to put a foot right, sleeping with witnesses is a relationship killer and tends to get one disciplined by the superiors on the force too. Ming is essential to the investigation however as a link to several tortured and deceased females comes to light when one of the intended victims escapes and is able to provide the police with details they would never have had otherwise.
Walking a tightrope on a precipitous career path and delving into his own psyche with the aid of the police psychiatrist McRay pushes forward with all the tact of a bull in a china shop following a path that leads to a super-secret sex club where members routinely engage in masochistic habits, all laid out in graphic Super 8mm as the end rushes at us in a crescendo of wild sex, dead bodies and betrayal.
Stevens has once again brought us to the edge of our seats with her gift for psychological suspense and leaves us scarred forever. Our relationship with her is tenuous at best, but like Ming is drawn to the tortured soul of McCray, we too are drawn in to the heat, better to be burned than to have never known the flame.
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