






From Publishers Weekly
In her second Det. Insp. Anna Travis novel (after 2004's Above Suspicion), British author La Plante, best known for TV's Prime Suspect featuring DCI Jane Tennison, transports the unsolved Black Dahlia murder to present-day London with disappointing results. When a young woman is found butchered in a field, Anna unexpectedly ends up sharing the case with her former lover, DCI James Langton. As they learn the full extent of the murderer's depravity, letters begin arriving at the police station and local paper, echoing those from the infamous Black Dahlia killer, active more than 50 years ago in Los Angeles. The self-named Red Dahlia Avenger mocks Anna and Langton as they hit one dead end after another. Anna lacks Tennison's tough vulnerability and floats through the story without much emotional investment. Procedural minutiae bog down this novel, which, despite the lurid subject matter, never manages to shock the reader. 

From Booklist
*Starred Review* Detective Inspector Anna Travis hasn't worked with DCI James Langton since they teamed up to find a serial killer more than a year earlier. At that time they had a brief fling and parted company unhappily when Langton wouldn't commit to a long-term relationship. When they're thrown together again on a murder case, Anna finds herself reattracted to Langton but vows to keep her feelings hidden. Given the nonstop demands of the case, that's not as difficult as she feared. The body of a beautiful young woman is found, cut in half and drained of blood. The autopsy reveals that the victim was tortured and brutalized before she died, and even the hardened cops on the case are shocked. With the killer still at large, comparisons are quickly made to the never-solved Black Dahlia murder in Los Angeles 50 years earlier, prompting the "Red Dahlia" moniker. When the case finally breaks open, it's the stuff of nightmares. Gritty, gruesome, and graphic, the latest from Prime Suspect scriptwriter La Plante is stomach-churning but virtually unputdownable. A must-read for hard-boiled aficionados not afraid to follow the blood splatters wherever they may lead. 


FOR THOSE WHO LOVE MYSTERIES BUT WISH THAT PATRICIA CORNWELL HAD A DIRTIER MIND,"* the author of Above Suspicion and the acclaimed Prime Suspect series returns with a new mystery.

When the body of a young girl is found dumped on the banks of the Thames, even the police are shocked by the brutality of her murder: horrifically mutilated, severed in half, and drained of blood, her corpse is an obvious mirror image of the famous Black Dahlia murder in 1940s Los Angeles.

Now Detective Inspector Anna Travis must race against time to catch this copycat killer. She turns to her mentor, the brilliant and volatile Detective Chief Inspector James Langton, but the frictions of their romantic relationship are complicating the case. And then a second girl is found... 

