Trick of Light

It's Sasha, Kay's Indian doctor-lover, who tells her about physicist David Bohm and his theory of implicate order, "a hidden order enfolded in the visible surface that we know." Kay uses the theory to investigate the murder of her beloved mentor, photographer Maddy Yamada, who left behind a series of obscure pictures totally unlike her trademark journalism. Sasha also tells Kay about synesthesia (the crossover of senses, which allows her to hear music as color): it becomes another valuable clue to Maddy's secret past.

All of this helps make up for a few less-than-fatal faults: too much reliance on Kay's ex-cop father and his handy connections to people with all sorts of dangerous talents, too many moments of leering sexual depravation, a predictable sameness among the bad guys in both books. In the end, Kay and her creator, Hunt, leave us with a strong story and a series of powerful black-and-white images deeply imprinted on our memory. --Dick Adler