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A self-appointed crusader is bumping off victims who he regards as Oreos (black on the outside but white on the inside). A quick tempered hot mama of a homicide detective draws the assignment of stopping him. That's the plot in a nutshell. It's a fresh storyline but I didn't rate it just on originality. What I liked most was the execution and I'm not talking about the murders. I'm talking about the quality of the writing. I found every character believable with strengths and weaknesses. I disconnect with stories based on characters that are all good or all evil. The main character, Bloody Mary (no, that's not the killer), for example, has a number of personal issues that she wrestles with in addition to having to stop a serial killer. And speaking of the devil, Eugene Shaw is an original as far as I know. I've never run across the likes of him on page before and certainly hope never to in person. I sort of stumbled onto this book. It was listed as one of the books readers also bought for another book I ordered. The cover is very eye catching but I was convinced by the reviews. Now I'm returning the favor. Buy the book.

This was a very entertaining story. Thought provoking also. The main character, Mary, reminded me of some females that I have had relationships with: stubborn, professional, and sexy. The motive of the killer was believable because the author did a fine job of presenting his background in sufficient detail for the reader to understand how a killer came to be. There are some philosophical themes in the book that deal with race, politics, and society but they all are relevant to the plot. I appreciate that the author did not preach. I'm going to stay on the lookout for this author's next book because his first one was a fine effort.

Yeah, this book scored on the fundamentals of plot, character, dialogue, pacing...yadda, yadda, yadda. But as they say on Madison Avenue, sex sells. In this case, the author handled sex in a way that wasn't exploitive but in a way that complimented the story. At different times it was tender, ugly, impersonal, or loving, depending on the participants. The author used sex to give the reader insight into the characters and to give dimension to them. Afterall, reading good writing about sex is second only to the real thing.

I hope that this doesn't come off as sexist, but I was a bit leary over a male writing about a female protagonist, because I'm a guy who's into hard-hitting action---the type that most female protagonists don't deliver. That wasn't the case with Lieutenant Bloody Mary Cunningham. Here, we have an in-your-face, bring-it-on character who can hold her own against the hardest-nose male characters in modern fiction. I give the author kudos for giving Mary a plot that was corky and relentless, and she drove it to the hilt. Sterling Anthony is an author who has intelligence and imagination. But if he doesn't make Mary a serial character, well, I'll take back all of my compliments.

It makes sense to me to judge a psychological suspense novel on whether or not it dealt with psychological themes and whether or not it was suspenseful. This book scores big on both counts. On the psychological side, the reader is given a killer that is very tormented and his background is detailed so that I had no difficulty believing his acts and his state of mind at the end. I found the protagonist less interesting, mainly because she was less complex. But in psychological terms, she had enough personal issues to add to the psychological theme. On the suspense side, there was a lot that I didn't foresee. I got blindsided a couple of times. And in between I kept reading because I really wanted to know what was going to happen next. That's what I call real suspense.