Publisher's Weekly
The domestic tranquility that Lauren Caylor and her five-year-old daughter, Emily, have found with Lauren's second husband, Richard, in quietly upscale San Miguel, Calif., yields to a domestic nightmare. Lauren realizes that she is being followed from her job at a landscape architecture firm and notices that the strange couple across the street is watching her house. When the family is followed from an outing Richard, visibly shaken, makes a frantic phone call to a man named Jameson--supposedly on the San Miguel police force--and assures Lauren that ``he's going to take care of things.'' After finding out that no one named Jameson works for the police, Lauren finagles a copy of Richard's employment application from his boss and discovers that his entire past, as she knows it, has been fabricated. When the frightening truth emerges, a double threat converges on the Caylor household, putting Lauren and Emily in real danger. Author of Night of Reunion and the Jake Lomax mysteries, Allegretto builds this tidy, tantalizing thriller to a satisfying conclusion with his usual aplomb. (Oct.)

Library Journal
Described in deadening brand-named detail is Lauren Caylor's ``sunny'' California existence: good second marriage to a man about whom she knows little, fulfilling but undemanding job, and nurturing motherhood to a precocious young daughter. Then a cloud appears on the horizon in the form of a man who seems to follow her home from work. The cloud grows to a storm of uncertainty and anxiety for Lauren when her husband overreacts to the presence of reclusive new neighbors and underreacts to disturbing developments. The reader will see the situation clearly long before the sun breaks through for Lauren. In addition, her character is not especially sympathetic or engaging, and her plight fails to generate suspense. Formulaic.-- V. Louise Saylor, Eastern Washington Univ. Lib., Cheney