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Thomas, Scarlett

In Your Face

London, New English Library. 277 pp. £5.99.

Jess Mallone, known as the Ice Queen at university, sells true-life stories to the press. She had written a feature about three women who were stalked and now, on the day of publication, they've all been found murdered. She calls on her friend Lily Pascale for help. Lily Pascale responds, but Jess has disappeared adding to the mystery.

Lily Pascale goes on the trail. Lily is young, feisty, still trying to work out what people are like, and to understand herself (like, do you have to be in love to go to bed with an attractive male). Her father's lover, a psychiatrist, specializing in criminals, helps her. Literary theory can be useful in understanding people, she learns. The narrative is interspersed with the murderer being interviewed, but it is not till the last pages we discover who it is and who is conducting the interview! (Talk about the borders of the crime novel being extended.) Are true-life magazine stories just that? Are they even true to life? The answer is short but subtle. One person's nightmare is another's fantasy is another's true-life.

This is the second in the Jill Pascale series. The author looks just old enough to be Jill Pascale's younger sister.