Publisher's Weekly
Alternating between the first-person narrative of her amateur-sleuth heroine and an interview with a serial killer describing each of his murders, Thomas's fresh and sexy contemporary English mystery, the second in a trilogy (after 2003's Dead Clever), keeps the reader riveted. Partly out of curiosity and partly to escape a would-be lover and colleague's marriage to a young student, crime-fiction lecturer Lily Pascale agrees to leave rural Devon to go up to London to help a former university friend, Jess Mallone. Jess has written an article on three women, all stalking victims who get murdered the same day the article appears in Smile! magazine. In her university days, Jess wore designer clothes and drove a BMW, so Lily is surprised to find that her old friend resides in a rundown, dreary flat. Worse, Jess has disappeared, leaving only a brief note. In her pursuit of the truth through the glamorous magazine world and London art scene, Lily comes up with a lot of connections but seemingly no suspects. The suspense builds as Lily and the killer's paths converge in an unpredictable climax. (Feb. 15) Forecast: The bold jacket design with a sketch of a female figure smoking a cigarette will signal the young and the hip. It also suggests the almost constant smoking that goes on in the novel, an authentic touch but one sure to strike many as an oddity in an increasingly smoke-free America. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal
Since achieving 15 minutes of fame for solving a murder (Dead Clever), Lily has slowed down professionally. Then, her university in Devon at session's end, she receives a plea for help from a former school friend in London. Jess, a freelance journalist, feels terrible: immediately after she published an article about three stalker victims, all three women are murdered. Lily ventures to the crime scenes and begins interrogations but cannot get in touch with her friend. Easy prose, tingling suspense, sympathetic characters, and a touch of sexual energy result in a solid second. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews
Three dead women and the missing tabloid reporter who put their How-I-Was-Stalked stories in print arouse the sleuthing quasi-expertise of quasi-hip 20-something Lucy Pascale. Lucy (Dead Clever, Feb. 2003), on summer break from teaching crime fiction in Devon and agonizing over her beloved Fenn's marriage to his pregnant one-night-stand, scampers to London, where her urbane Gallic dad and his new lady friend Star open their quarters with her while she tries to connect with Jess, an old university chum who rang up, whispered she was in great trouble and needed Lucy's investigative skills, then disappeared. The coppers have no luck finding her or tracking the killers of the gals in her stalking expose. With some advice from Jess's co-workers, ex-lovers, and Star, a therapist specializing in psychopathic disorders, Lucy discovers some tawdry truths about Jess's work ethic, then gets the uncanny feeling she too is being stalked. Lots of cigarettes, bus and tube rides, and cell phone messages later, Lucy is over Fenn and in view of Jess, but she has to rely on a one-night-stand of her own to rescue poor Star, who's practically hoarse from keeping the killer distractedly chatting about his wiles and woes. Thomas strives to be clever, but her transparent clues, feeble attempts at misdirection, and whiney heroine are way off the mark. Maybe she'll put the more engaging Star and Lucy's dad front and center next time.