Stranger in the Room: A Novel (Keye Street) - Softcover

Williams, Amanda Kyle

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0553593811 ISBN 13: 9780553593815

Publisher: Bantam, 2013

Synopsis

“One of the most addictive new series heroines since Stephanie Plum.”—The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Atlanta private investigator and ex–FBI profiler Keye Street wants nothing more than time alone with her boyfriend, Aaron—but, as usual, murder gets in the way. A.P.D. Lieutenant Aaron Rauser is called to the disturbing scene of the strangling death of a thirteen-year-old boy. Meanwhile, Keye, a recovering alcoholic, must deal with her emotionally fragile cousin, who has her own history of drug abuse and is now convinced that she is being stalked. But all hell breaks loose when another murder—the apparent hanging of an elderly man—hits disturbingly close to home for Keye. Though the two victims have almost nothing in common, there are bizarre similarities between this case and that of Aaron’s strangled teen. With the threat of more deaths to come, Keye works on pure instinct alone—and soon realizes that a killer is circling ever closer to the people she loves the most.
 
Praise for Amanda Kyle Williams and Stranger in the Room
 
“Keye Street remains the most interesting, cynically funny and smart series detective today. . . . The tension buzzes like cicadas on a hot Georgia night and the pace is relentless.”—Seattle Post-Intelligencer
 
“The best fictional female P.I. since Sue Grafton’s Kinsey Millhone.”—The Plain Dealer
 
“Keye Street immediately puts herself in the top echelon of suspense heroes. She’s a mess of fascinating contradictions—effortlessly brilliant on a case, totally inept in managing her own life. She is brutally funny and powerfully human—one of the most realistic protagonists in crime fiction that I’ve had the thrill to read.”—Tess Gerritsen, New York Times bestselling author of Last to Die
 
“There’s a new voice in Atlanta, and her name is Amanda Kyle Williams—captivating, powerful and compelling.”—Julia Spencer-Fleming, New York Times bestselling author of One Was a Soldier
 
“Readers of this fast-paced thriller will be eager for the next Street tale.”—Publishers Weekly

About this title

Review

Author One-on-One: Julia Spencer-Fleming and Amanda Kyle Williams
A former military brat, New York Times bestselling author Julia Spencer-Fleming grew up in places as diverse as Montgomery, Rome, Stuttgart and Syracuse. A graduate of Ithaca College, George Washington University and the University of Maine School of Law, she took up writing while still a stay-at-home mother of two. During the time it took to finish her first novel, she got a full-time job at a Portland, Maine, law firm and had a third child. Julia didn’t want to write yet another lawyer-sleuth, so she used her army past and a keen eye for the goings-on at her Episcopal church to create Clare Fergusson, first female priest in the small Adirondack town of Millers Kill. The resulting series has won or been nominated for every American mystery award available, including the Edgar, the Anthony, and the Agatha. Her next book, Through the Evil Days, will be released in May 2013.

Now happily quit of the law, Julia lives in the Maine countryside with three kids, two dogs and one husband.

JSF: Could Keye Street exist anywhere but Atlanta, or is she the product of her city?
AKW: Hard to imagine Keye without her southern roots. The South has a way of shaping you. It gets inside you. She loves the crazy weather and the pine forests. She loves the city and the food. There’s a couple of lines from Stranger In The Room that explains her relationship to her geography. “ You don’t merely exist here. You make a blood-pact with it the moment the soft, moist air fills your nostrils with the sensual scent of confederate jasmine and floods your DNA like reproductive seed.”

JSP: In The Stranger You Seek, Keye is introduced as a disgraced former profiler. Do you think she still carries that disgrace, or has she moved on in Stranger in the Room?
AKW: It’s getting better. She can make jokes now about being fired, about being unable to manage drinking. But make no mistake, losing the thing she’d worked toward and wanted her whole life and knowing that she sabotaged her own career, marked her. Keye’s not only a product of the American South, she’s a product of addiction. Shame, disgrace, it’s one of the tricks of addiction. It hammers your self-esteem. So that theme had been playing out for years before we met Keye in The Stranger You Seek. She’s sober now and relearning life, but you learn a way of being, of hiding, of being secretive, of always feeling like less when you’re feeding a drug or alcohol habit. So that’s one of those demons she has to occasionally wrestle down—all the learned behaviors around addiction. But Keye Street is a survivor. She’s not a victim. Keye owns her issues and works on them. And she does it with a sense of humor. Laughter keeps her up. Finding the funny in the little things is Keye’s great talent. And she’s okay with laughing at herself too.

JSF: What’s next for Keye?
AKW: Book 3 in the series Don’t Talk To Strangers. I’m working on it now and I’m really excited about where the series is going and where Keye is headed. She’s using her profiling skills to consult with local law enforcement more and more often. It’s how she’s bouncing back and getting to do what she loves—examining the psychological needs and dark fantasies of a violent repeat offender.

About the Author

Amanda Kyle Williams was the author of the Keye Street thriller series, including The Stranger You Seek, which was nominated for both a Townsend Award for Fiction and a Shamus Award from the Private Eye Writers of America, The Stranger in the Room, and Don’t Talk to Strangers. She died in 2018.

About this edition

• Publisher: Bantam
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 0553593811
• ISBN 13: 9780553593815
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• Number of pages: 400