Night Stalker
Donna Anders
Pocket, Dec 2003, 390 pp.
ISBN: 0743427300

In Issaquah, Washington divorcee Julia Farley holds six part-time jobs to earn money for her and her two teenage daughters. She enjoys running in the woods just outside her house, but on this jog feels fear that someone is watching her. She fears her former husband Peter is increasingly out of control and trying to scare her back into a marriage with him.

Julia sits on a writing panel discussing "truth in nonfiction". Also on the panel is renowned criminal lawyer and now author of a true crime book Earl Paulson. Earl tells her that he has two children and a psycho wife; she mentions that she has two teens and an imbalanced ex. Julia is surprised that she likes Earl. As an attraction between them deepens, someone begins stalking Julia and her children. Incidents occur and everyone believes Peter is the culprit. Could Peter be a threat to the daughters he loves?

NIGHT STALKER is an exciting thriller that grips readers from the start through the immediate admiration of the heroine and her extended family (daughters, sister and her brother-in-law. However, readers will believe that Peter is too obvious as the prime suspect though Julia seems to be a stalker's magnet. A confrontation Julia forces seems dumb for such an intelligent person as that would have been better handled by the cops. Still the problem remains: who is the threat and how to not just survive it, but to stop it without dying or causing loved ones to die. This will keep readers going until the final shocking twist.

Harriet Klausner