A Lunatic Fear
B.A. Chepaitis
Wildside, July 2004, $15.00, 191 pp.
ISBN 0809500639

After the Killing Times, Earth constructs prisons on terraformed asteroids like Planetoid Three to contain and rehabilitate the most vicious killers. Jaguar, an empath, uses her psi skills and works with the prisoners as a Teacher and she has a phenomenal success rate with even the hardcore killers. Her latest case involves three women who went on a killing spree and when she examines their records she diagnoses them as suffering the effects of exposure to Artenis compounds, the by-products of moon mining.

Moon mining has been suspended for two years pending the outcomes of studies on women who miscarried, hemorrhaged and even killed for no apparent reason after being exposed to it. Lobbyists are trying to get the repeal lifted, but Jaguar and her boss Alex can prove that exposure to Artenis compounds caused the women to kill. There are people, including one of the administrators of the prison planetoids, who are willing to kill Alex and Jaguar to prevent them from making their concerns public.

It has been too long since the latest Jaguar Adam's science fiction mystery has been published but it has been well worth the wait. Both the heroine and her wannabe lover Alex get caught up in a criminal conspiracy and it takes the fighting nature of the protagonist that gives them a chance against their enemies in a final confrontation that is explosive. A LUNATIC FEAR has cross-genre appeals to fans of science fiction, mystery and romance. B.A. Chepaitis is a terrific world-builder who creates characters readers will root for.

Harriet Klausner