Devastated by her lover"s death in a slaying that was her fault, Aud Torvingen has sequestered herself in an isolated Appalachian cabin she"s painstakingly rebuilding. Grief is Aud"s only companion--a grief so acutely and powerfully evoked that it"s almost another character in this brilliant and multifaceted novel. Reluctantly drawn back to the world by her oldest friend, whose fiancée has gone missing, Aud agrees to investigate, and quickly tracks the missing Tammy Foster to a Soho loft. She also finds Geordie Karp, the psychopath who turned Tammy into a sexual and psychological slave and has already chosen his next victim, a 12-year-old girl who"s been smuggled into the country and sold to Karp. Stopping Karp, a task for which Aud is uniquely suited, tests her strength and her sanity; by transforming her grief into vengeance, she"s forced to come to terms with the violence and brutality that are as central to her character as tenderness, sensuality, and vulnerability. Tautly plotted and pulsating with energy, this is a novel that won"t let go, alternately searing and shocking as well as soaring with lyrical prose that"s close to poetry in places. Aud, Nicola Griffith"s complex protagonist who made her first appearance in The Blue Place, is never less than compelling in this stunning sequel. --Jane Adams