Mystery/Suspense

The Stranger You Seek

By: Amanda Kyle Williams
Publisher: Random House/Bantam Books
Publishing Date: August 2011
ISBN: 978-0-553-80807-0
Reviewed By: Mary Lignor
Review Date: August 2011

This exciting thriller from a new suspense author will introduce to readers a completely never-to-be-forgotton heroine. Keye Street was an orphan and adopted by an American couple in Atlanta when she was very young. As an adult, Keye worked as an FBI Profiler but she had drinking problems and was let go by the FBI. After rehab, she decided to open her own Private Investigation business and business has been good.

At the start of this novel readers are introduced to a very clever serial killer who has been harassing Atlanta for a while and writing letters to the police saying: "You have either concluded that I am a braggart as well as a sadist or that I have a deep and driving need to be caught and punished. And you must be wondering if I am, in fact, the stranger you seek. Shall I convince you?"

The Atlanta Police Department, mainly Lt. Aaron Rauser, knowing Keye's background as a profiler, asks her if she will help him out on this case. Keye agrees because she feels she can fit the case in while still catching bail jumpers, running down corporate crooks, serving restraining orders and delivering subpoenas. The first murder victim/case that Keye works on with Aaron is the terrifying murder of an Asian woman in her thirties. Keye is quickly involved in not one murder case, but in many as they learn that this murder is the most current in a string of serial murders, all very similar, all carried out in the state of Florida.

As Keye and Aaron witness more killings it becomes clear that the hunter has become the hunted. And, the stranger who they seek is much closer to them than they realize. This story is a real page-turner with a protaganist that is both clever and horrible. All played out during a very hot and sultry summer in Atlanta, a city that has been in the middle of chaos many times over.

Quill Says: The Stranger You Seek is a fascinating debut thriller with fast paced action and good plotting with an introduction to a new heroine that we hope will be around for a long time to come.