Double the thrill

Authors Lawrence Light and Meredith Anthony come from widely divergent backgrounds: Light is the Wall Street editor for Forbes magazine, and Anthony, a humorist, has been a contributor to MAD magazine and the women's humor quarterly, Hysteria. Together they have crafted a disquieting novel of suspense set in and around a crisis center in New York City, Ladykiller. Spousal abuse, rape, suicide—these issues and more traverse the threshold of the Westside Crisis Center on a daily basis. Another issue is about to join their ranks: murder . . . and it won't stop at just one. Detective Dave Dillon pairs up with social worker Megan Morrison in an attempt to head off the killer, but they wind up instead in a whirlwind romance that both seem incapable of putting the brakes on. And still the murders continue. There are a couple of pretty good twists in this narrative, and it's a fair bet you won't see at least one of them coming.