I hope Patricia Cornwell's legion of fans will forgive me for saying so, but Dr. Sylvia Strange is a much more complicated and likeable character than Kay Scarpetta. Sarah Lovett's books about Santa Fe-based forensic psychologist Strange (Dangerous Attachments is also out in paperback) are full of the details of her crime work, but they're also firmly rooted in the basic humanity of her everyday life. And Lovett's plots have lots of compensating social impact to go with the murder, rape, and pillage: this time she raises the serious question of what to do when authentic sexual villains slip off the legal hook.


From Publishers Weekly
Her name notwithstanding, Sylvia Strange is a fairly normal forensic psychologist; here, as in her debut (Dangerous Attachments), it is the world around her that is strange and disturbingly violent. After Sylvia's court testimony helps let sadistic rapist Anthony Randall go free, both she and the defendant pay. Randall is abducted, castrated and torched, and Sylvia is attacked and left a photo of the castrated rapist. Sylvia's lover, Matt England, on the murder case for the New Mexico State Police, is wary of a friend, AWOL FBI agent Dan Chaney, who crops up to convince Sylvia and Matt that the killer is an arms dealer the Bureau claims is dead. By the time a second sexual offender is torched, and it looks like Sylvia may have contributed to the death by overlooking problems with a client during his parole-mandated therapy sessions, Chaney's story sounds pretty good. Toss in Matt's ex-lover, a shaman with "a midnight full-moon healing ceremony" and a psychic who helps save the day, and this becomes a story for those who revel in excess: physical, psychological and spiritual. The path to the solution is convoluted and character-crowded, but Lovett successfully pulls the story's several strands together in the end. (Sept.) FYI: Simultaneous audio publication with the audio ($18, ISBN 0-679-43271-0).Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
Forensic psychologist Sylvia Strange (Dangerous Attachments, LJ 5/1/95), testifying for the defense, unwillingly aids in the acquittal of a psychopathic rapist, a fact which becomes a bone of contention between her and her lover, criminal agent Matt England. Upon his release from jail, however, the rapist unwittingly falls victim to a vigilante known as "Killer." Killer taunts Sylvia and Matt with Polaroids of his trussed kills?escapees from justice due to legal screw-ups?and stalks them while they attempt to find him. Cadenced prose, psychological insight, taut suspense, and the swift violence of a chilling plot makes this highly recommended.Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From AudioFile
As if it weren't bad enough that Dr. Silvia Strange, the psychiatrist/ heroine of Lovett's latest mystery, has just given court testimony that has released a confessed rapist and murderer--now a mysterious villain known only as "Killer" is out to get her, as well. Lindsay Crouse's intense voice--although periodically lacking in tonal variation--lends itself naturally to Dr. Strange's adventures and musings. We hear her weariness as she slumps onto her couch with a well-deserved martini. We almost feel the blows as she's attacked after what was meant to be a relaxing shower. Violent and disturbingly plausible in its plot, ACQUIRED MOTIVES sweeps listeners into its dark puzzle. R.A.P. (c)AudioFile, Portland, Maine


From Booklist
Lovett offers an exceptional plot, unusual characters, gripping suspense, and vivid forensic details in this offbeat but satisfying story. The nightmare begins for forensic psychologist Sylvia Strange when she is attacked by a terrifying apparition with a mud-smeared face. Then an FBI agent shows her a horrifying film of a man being burned alive, apparently by someone who was supposedly killed months earlier. Then a prison inmate becomes catatonic after claiming to have seen a giant owl of death, and another man is burned alive. Drawn to the terrifying case in spite of her fears, Sylvia investigates with the help of her lover, agent Matt England. Lovett's dark plot is gut wrenching and full of unexpected twists. She uses her New Mexico setting to fine effect, injecting a sense of New Age spirituality that's both calming and eerie. Best of all, though, is the complex and charismatic heroine, who can be as doubt ridden as she is strong and spirited. A potent novel. Emily Melton


From Kirkus Reviews
Forensic psychologist Sylvia Strange (Dangerous Attachments, 1995) tackles a vigilante who's executing unpunished rapists and murderers. Sylvia's current nightmare--you really wouldn't want to have this woman's dreams--begins when she's forced to testify on behalf of sadistic rapist Anthony Randall, who promptly walks when New Mexico state cop Erin Tulley, whose sexual-favoritism grievance has just been dismissed, testifies that he was non compos when he confessed. But somebody called the Killer, who's just waiting to redress this miscarriage of justice, kidnaps, terrorizes, emasculates, and sets Randall ablaze. An isolated nutcase, thinks Sylvia, until FBI agent Dan Chaney, still grieving over a shootout in Las Cruces that left his colleague and clandestine lover Nina Valdez dead, digs up evidence that links gunrunner Dupont White to Randall's killing, and at least one earlier experiment in homemade justice, and Sylvia begins to get phone calls, alternately piteous and threatening, from Dupont. The case would be perfect, if only Dupont hadn't been killed in Las Cruces too. But since he's dead (he is dead, isn't he?), why is the killer aping him, and who's crazy enough to try? Incredibly, almost the entire cast seems to qualify, from Dupont's psychotic girlfriend, Violet Miller, to his disturbed aunt, Jilly White, to self-styled psychic Benji Mu¤oz y Concha, frightened into catatonia by the Killer's handiwork, to erratic Dan Chaney to strung-out Sylvia herself, who tells her lover, state cop Matt England, to arrest and cuff her: ``I always need to understand, to evaluate every-fucking-thing and get inside it until I'm crazy.'' Long before Sylvia, skittering from one overgalvanized scene to the next, ends up identifying the Killer by uncovering the long-ago activities of the legendary Gentleman's Club, you'll be ready to sign commitment papers for the whole crew. A rip-roaring story done nearly to death by an overload of crazies on both sides of the law. (Author tour) -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.


Review
Kirkus Reviews A rip-roaring story.


Book Description
A different kind of serial killer is terrorizing the city of Santa Fe. All of the victims have one thing in common: they were violent sex offenders who slipped through the cracks in the justice system, and walked on legal technicalities. Someone has decided to make them pay. Forensic psychologist Dr. Sylvia Strange is called upon to help catch the killer, even if she has mixed feelings about the victims. She must uncover the pain of a madman -- pain that has driven him over the edge and into the depths of sadistic retribution. But Sylvia soon draws the attentions of the vigilante, who decides that anyone who tries to stop justice must be dealt with as any other criminal -- with a sentence of death. Includes exciting excerpts from Sarah Lovett's thrillers featuring Dr. Sylvia Strange: Dangerous Attachments, A Desperate Silence, Dantes' Inferno and her lastest hardcover, Dark Alchemy, coming soon from Simon and Schuster


From the Publisher
I'm a suspense thriller junky, which means I'll pick up just about any author once in the hopes that they can keep me engrossed for an hour or two. Well, when I picked up Sarah Lovett's incredible books that involve psychiatrist Dr. Sylvia Strange, I found that I just couldn't put them down! I have an hour and half commute to and from work and within a matter of days I felt like I knew Sylvia Strange inside and out. Sarah Lovett has created an incredible character, but more than that her attention to detail and engaging plot lines make her books impossible to put down...so much so that I almost missed my stop on the train!Sarah Glazar, Assistant Editor

FROM THE PUBLISHER

When we first met Dr. Strange in Sarah Lovett's previous novel, Dangerous Attachments, she had become the object of an obsessive prisoner in the state penitentiary where she assessed the inmates. Just as Dr. Strange used her remarkable psychological insights into the violent criminal mind to crack that case, she must now draw upon all her experience to discover why she has become the target of a sadistic madman. Is it because she's abetted one molester's release by testifying to his mental instability? Or did her troubled romance with New Mexico State Police detective Matt England perhaps inspire one of his enemies to seek revenge? Or could it simply be that Sylvia's under too much stress and is beginning to imagine frightening goings-on around her?

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

Her name notwithstanding, Sylvia Strange is a fairly normal forensic psychologist; here, as in her debut (Dangerous Attachments), it is the world around her that is strange and disturbingly violent. After Sylvia's court testimony helps let sadistic rapist Anthony Randall go free, both she and the defendant pay. Randall is abducted, castrated and torched, and Sylvia is attacked and left a photo of the castrated rapist. Sylvia's lover, Matt England, on the murder case for the New Mexico State Police, is wary of a friend, AWOL FBI agent Dan Chaney, who crops up to convince Sylvia and Matt that the killer is an arms dealer the Bureau claims is dead. By the time a second sexual offender is torched, and it looks like Sylvia may have contributed to the death by overlooking problems with a client during his parole-mandated therapy sessions, Chaney's story sounds pretty good. Toss in Matt's ex-lover, a shaman with "a midnight full-moon healing ceremony" and a psychic who helps save the day, and this becomes a story for those who revel in excess: physical, psychological and spiritual. The path to the solution is convoluted and character-crowded, but Lovett successfully pulls the story's several strands together in the end. (Sept.) FYI: Simultaneous audio publication with the audio ($18, ISBN 0-679-43271-0).

Library Journal

The latest mystery from the best-selling author of Dangerous Attachments (LJ 3/1/95).

Kirkus Reviews

Forensic psychologist Sylvia Strange (Dangerous Attachments, 1995) tackles a vigilante who's executing unpunished rapists and murderers.

Sylvia's current nightmare—you really wouldn't want to have this woman's dreams—begins when she's forced to testify on behalf of sadistic rapist Anthony Randall, who promptly walks when New Mexico state cop Erin Tulley, whose sexual-favoritism grievance has just been dismissed, testifies that he was non compos when he confessed. But somebody called the Killer, who's just waiting to redress this miscarriage of justice, kidnaps, terrorizes, emasculates, and sets Randall ablaze. An isolated nutcase, thinks Sylvia, until FBI agent Dan Chaney, still grieving over a shootout in Las Cruces that left his colleague and clandestine lover Nina Valdez dead, digs up evidence that links gunrunner Dupont White to Randall's killing, and at least one earlier experiment in homemade justice, and Sylvia begins to get phone calls, alternately piteous and threatening, from Dupont. The case would be perfect, if only Dupont hadn't been killed in Las Cruces too. But since he's dead (he is dead, isn't he?), why is the killer aping him, and who's crazy enough to try? Incredibly, almost the entire cast seems to qualify, from Dupont's psychotic girlfriend, Violet Miller, to his disturbed aunt, Jilly White, to self-styled psychic Benji Muñoz y Concha, frightened into catatonia by the Killer's handiwork, to erratic Dan Chaney to strung-out Sylvia herself, who tells her lover, state cop Matt England, to arrest and cuff her: "I always need to understand, to evaluate every-fucking-thing and get inside it until I'm crazy." Long before Sylvia, skittering from one overgalvanized scene to the next, ends up identifying the Killer by uncovering the long-ago activities of the legendary Gentleman's Club, you'll be ready to sign commitment papers for the whole crew.

A rip-roaring story done nearly to death by an overload of crazies on both sides of the law.