Robert Ellis follows up his 2007 smash hit, "City of Fire," with the second of what I hope will be a long running series of novels featuring LA Police Detective Lena Gamble. She is a welcome new entrant on the mystery crime beat as a former cop from Hollywood who has recently been promoted to the elite Robbery-Homicide Division of the LAPD. Both novels are so beautifully written and well constructed that they will have you on the edge of your seat. 

Lena is a strangely appealing personality, for she is neither warm nor witty. While she lacks charm and humor, she possesses integrity, smarts, and determination in spades. Also the fact that she is carrying a load of emotional baggage, which adds just the right touch of humanity to her persona. Although very attractive, Lena is a no nonsense cop who is better than most because she has her feminine intuition and she is more than willing to think outside of the box. She is also successful because her gut instincts are second to none. 

Lena's deductive abilities have resulted in a superlative police track record which has culminated in her recent promotion. Her success, though, has come at a price, for along with the favorable publicity, she has become the object of considerable envy from her fellow officers who consider her something of a diva. Lately the workplace envy has even developed into enmity due to her solving the last case, the "Romeo Case" (covered in the prior novel), which involved a corrupt cop and showered unwanted negative publicity upon the police department. 

This novel reads like the author has a ringside seat on the inner workings of the LA Police department with his taut and meaty descriptions about police procedurals and the sometimes plodding methods whereby cops go about following leads, often into blind alleys, as they eliminate some suspects while pursuing others. In addition, this story covers in great detail the internecine politics of a police department. The view is not pretty in this male-dominated business filled with big egos, easily bruised feelings, and too many talentless hacks. Fortunately, Lena has a few loyal friends at her back.

The story begins with a gut wrenching description of a murder as experienced from the perspective of the victim, a young woman who is loitering around the parking lot of a fast food restaurant at two am in the morning looking for her next john. A good looking man approaches in the semidarkness, but as he gets closer his cold, steel blue eyes warn her that this john will be trouble. The sudden shock of a stun gun removes all of her resistance as she experiences the final few moments of her life.

Once again Ellis features another brutal psychopath who is as brilliant as he is dangerous, and he is very, very dangerous. The body of the young woman is later found in a commercial garbage bag in a dumpster in a seedy section of Hollywood. It has been carved up into pieces with no blood found at the scene. This causes the Hollywood cops to pass the case over to the better equipped Robbery-Homicide Division of the LAPD. 

Lt. Frank Barrera calls Lena and informs her that Chief of Police Richard S. Logan has selected her to handle the case. Barrera and Gamble are good friends, and both realize that this is a lose-lose situation for Lena. Logan gave her this high profile case because he is still mad at her for the recent departmental black eye. He wants this case solved quickly, which is by no means likely. If Lena does, then fine, but if she stumbles, she will be giving him a reason to reassign her. Worse still for Lena, Logan has Adjutant Ken Klinger as his assistant, and he is a weasel of a man who will delight in yanking her chain. 

Lena will have to play ball by someone else's rules in a time frame not of her own choosing and with political pressure sure to increase if any delays develop. What Lena has yet to discover is how high into the corridors of Los Angeles power her investigation will take her in what is sure to be another black eye for the city. 2009, St. Martin's Press, Minotaur Books (Macmillan), 352 pages.