This is the second Keye Street novel, with The Stranger You Seek being first. Enough background is sprinkled into this second book to make it read fine as a stand-alone.

The pace here is quick, with multiple cases and everything in constant motion. As with the first book, the characters are vivid and fun. Keye is the slightly damaged heroine who always seems to find herself in the center of trouble. I especially like Neil, her part techno geek, part stoner sidekick.

I thought the first book played a little too heavily on similarities with Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum series. This second book pulled away from those likenesses and began showing more differences in the characters and their relationships.

For me, there were two problem points. The first was the amount of chaos in both of the cases she was working. Keye Street is knee-deep in dead bodies throughout. The dark humor I loved about the first was largely absent here. The second problem I had was the constant lament about the smell, taste, texture, and feel of alcohol. I understand alcoholism is a difficult disease, but the references in this book became repetitive. Because they didn't lead anywhere and each was the same as the next, it annoyed me.

These two issues kept the book from being a 5-star read for me. Overall, though, it's a fast-paced suspense with intriguing characters that kept me turning pages.