Type of bind: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 823.92
EAN num: 9780312328801
ISBN number: 031232880X
Label: St. Martin's Minotaur
Manufacturer: St. Martin's Minotaur
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 336
Printing Date: June 01, 2005
Publishing house: St. Martin's Minotaur
Release Date: May 12, 2005
Sale Popularity Level: 928044
Studio: St. Martin's Minotaur
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Product Description:
Once she had been beautiful. Now she was eight days dead, her body slashed with more than fifty cuts.
Janis Parker - young, successful and glamorous - had shared her modern Notting Hill apartment with flatmate Stephanie James. But now Janis is dead - and Stephanie has disappeared.
Heading up the investigation, Detective Stella Mooney soon has her very first suspect, in the shape of Mark Ross - Stephanie's boyfriend and Janis's secret lover . . .
But then another body is discovered - slashed fifty times.
Clearly these are no domestic killings. It seems Stella and her team are looking for that most dangerous of creatures: a killer who hunts to feed a terrible appetite.
But the truth is they are up against something even more terrifying. . .
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Rated by buyers 
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This is not really my kind of English mystery - I am more of the "cozy" type. But for what it is, it is pretty good. It's rather rough reading and I did get tired of the main character angst about her two lovers but the mystery itself was interesting. I started to put it down a couple of times but kept going back until the end just to see how it ended. Definitely not a cozy but if you like rather rough police procedurals, you will enjoy this. It's a London you will NOT want to visit.
Rated by buyers 
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While at the library the other day, looking at the new books, I saw a new book by David Lawrence. The book, Cold Kill, caught my eye, especially since it said "A Stella Mooney Novel." I put that one down and went in search of Lawrence's earlier novels. The second book, Nothing Like the Night, was the one that I took from the library (the very first one wasn't available).
A young, successful, beautiful woman is found dead in her apartment (or, since the action occurs in London, I should say 'flat.'), stabbed over 50 times. There isn't much forensic evidence, so the police believe it to be over drugs, a former lover, or a robbery gone bad. It isn't until a second woman is found, murdered in the same manner that the police, and Stella Mooney, think that something else is happening.
Let me say, very first off, that I am not familiar with a lot of British customs/phrases, so some of the reading was difficult to comprehend. Specifically, the references to "DS Mooney," "AMIP" (Area Major Investigation Pool), "DC Harriman," and the like. I suppose that I needed some reference to compare these to the US police departments. But, those are very small complaints.
This is a wonderful book. The main character, Stella Mooney, has issues. She is prone to nightmares, she is in two relationships, she's seeing a psychologist. She isn't "superwoman," but she is a great detective. As the pressure mounts to find the killer(s), Stella has pressure mounting in her personal life. Also, the reader is introduced to the seedier side of London. It would be fair to say that the writing is gritty and realistic.
A highly recommended book. I am looking forward to reading the other books in this series.
Rated by buyers 
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I did not order this book nor have I received it and I hope I wasn't charged for it.
Pauline Picerno
Rated by buyers -
The second in the relatively new Stella Mooney series continues dark and gloomy, giving us wide swathes of the dank, gritty underground of London where the gangs, prostitutes and drug-pushers hold sway. Now, someone is torturing and killing beautiful women. Although the scenes are full of evidence, it is of no use because there is no one to whom it can be linked. As the death tolls mount, and Stella's personal life grows ever more dark, this thriller races to a pulse-pounding beat.
This book is definitely right up my alley - the descriptions are vivid and almost poetic without being overboard, bringing the reader into the scene. Definitely worth the read - I look forward to the subsequent in the series.
Rated by buyers -
Lawrence's second Stella Mooney procedural is even better than his exceptional debut, "The Dead Sit Around in a Ring," Mooney, a tortured soul who doesn't want to give up the devotion of her longterm love, George, or the excitement of her passion for journalist John Delaney, approaches her work with an appealing tough relentlessness.
Another serial killer story with graphic depictions of torture murders and gruesome forensics, the novel's quality rests on the noirish complexity of the characters, intriguing subplots (the homeless boy living with dogs in a mausoleum, for instance) and the depth of the setting as much as the suspense of the chase.
Though the very first victim is a glamorous former fashion model, there is nothing pretty about Lawrence's London. The glittery models keep slim on cocaine; the dealers inhabit a world where brutality is strength and death is a teaching tool; sex is either a commodity, a sickness or both. Stella's heartfelt passion and integrity are balanced by guilt and secrets, some worse than others.
Point of view centers on Stella but shifts frequently, from the omniscient witness of a brutal drama in the slums to the specific terror of a marked man, a murder victim, a betrayed lover, a sadistic killer. Gritty and dark, Lawrence's series should appeal to fans of Ian Rankin, Michael Connelly and Val McDermid.
- Portsmouth Herald
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