The body was found on the bank of the Mississippi, near downtown St. Louis. Strangled but no sign of sexual assault: what homicide lieutenant George Hastings calls a joy killing murder for the cheap thrill of it. The victim, a student at a local university, moonlighted as a high-end escort. The investigation cools until another escort is found murdered in the same fashion. A task force is formed with the intent of catching the killer before the press gets the story and the city panics. Interviews with the victims' johns reveal only a series of lonely, embarrassed, and frightened men. Then the killer sends a note to the newspaper taking credit for the two killings, mocking the police, and promising more death. The third entry in the Hastings series (following Goodbye Sister Disco, 2008) is equal parts thriller and procedural. The killer is identified early, and his cat-and-mouse game with Hastings is carefully and disturbingly rendered. Most unsettling is the killer's scrupulously constructed and maintained facade of niceness. Darkly entertaining.--Lukowsky, Wes Copyright 2009 Booklist

Lt. George Hastings, St. Louis Homicide, locks horns with a man whose fondness for killing prostitutes extends to women who think they aren't. The first victim, Reesa Woods, works as a high-end escort to put herself through college and set a little aside. When she leaves visiting New York banker Geoffrey Harris, she has no idea that he's her final client. When her strangled corpse turns up on a foul section of the Mississippi bank, Hastings (Goodbye Sister Disco, 2008, etc.) finds no physical evidence, no associates eager to cooperate with his investigation and no sign that the killer has made any mistakes. After Adele Sayers, a second escort, is found strangled outside the city, a joint task force is appointed to coordinate city and county inquiries. Though he's second in command among the SLPD participants, Hastings gets nothing out of the task force but some serious friction with its head, Chief of Detectives Ronnie Wulf. By rights, the murder of realtor Marla Hilsheimer, clubbed instead of strangled, ought to break the case wide open because it clearly departs from the pattern. But it does no such thing. Neither does the gloating letter the killer sends the St. Louis Herald. Instead, both Hastings and Reesa's colleague Rita Liu have a series of convenient hunches that pay off. As usual, Hunt writes a mean sentence and keeps up the pace so smartly that his growing number of fans won't look too closely at the holes in the detective work or the disappointingly conventional presentation of the assailant. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Colorless characters and a recycled plot line undercut Hunt's third procedural to feature Lt. George Hastings of the St. Louis police (after 2008's Goodbye Sister Disco). Assigned to look into the strangulation of a prostitute, Hastings doesn't get far on the case before a second hooker turns up dead. Those expecting a whodunit may be dismayed to learn about a quarter of the way into the story that the killer is a local surgeon, Raymond Sheffield. Eager to be recognized for his crimes, if only under the moniker "Springheel Jim," Sheffield calls journalist Cliff Llewellyn to tip Llewellyn off that the two slayings are linked, that there's now a third victim-and that a public library book on Jack the Ripper contains a vital clue. Hastings is a competent enough investigator, but the reader has little basis to believe that without Sheffield's revealing phone call Hastings would ever catch the killer. (June) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

In his third outing (after Goodbye Sister Disco and The Betrayers), Lieutenant George Hastings of the St. Louis PD is called out when the strangled corpse of a co-ed high-priced escort is discovered dumped on the banks of the Mississippi. When another woman is found strangled to death, Hastings suspects there might be a serial killer on the loose, but the city's powers-that-be want a quick end to the case. While the serial killer plot is not particularly fresh, Hunt's nail-biting storytelling keeps readers in its grip until the end. For those who like John Sandford and remember David L. Lindsey's Houston homicide detective Stuart Haydon. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.