From Publishers Weekly
In pushing the borders of scientific possibility in this creepy medical thriller, his second after Gargoyles (2001), Nayes provides some genuinely chilling suspense. After treating a young woman who then dies seemingly of fright on the operating table, dream specialist Julie Charmaine hears from Vicki Zambisi, a young woman disturbed by dreams of a mysterious monster from her past, who hopes cryogenics expert Dr. Wesley Kovacs can help her. Soon a strange hybrid creature, the "Sewer Stalker," is no dream, but a serial killer roaming beneath Los Angeles and preying primarily on young women, some of them in Dr. Charmaine's own hospital. Before too long, Charmaine and Zambisi are forced by the increasing danger into an alliance with LAPD homicide detective Matt Guardian to take up Zambisi's pursuit of Dr. Kovacs and his experiments in prolonging life by freezing. The tale affords a rather old-fashioned view of women (however professional) as victim, along with some improbable informational dialogue, particularly on the part of Dr. Kovacs. This is a book that only dedicated horror fans will treasure, but a wide variety of readers will thoroughly enjoy reading once.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
From the moment doomed Irene Inez is dragged kicking and screaming from her car on a rainy Los Angeles night, this latest thriller from the author of
Gargoyles (2001) will have you frantically guessing what horrors will await the next victim. When police bring a bloody and incoherent Inez to the California University Medical Center's ER, Dr. Julie Charmaine--a psychiatrist who specializes in battered women--is called in for a consultation. After her patient literally dies of fright the next morning, Dr. Charmaine teams up with LAPD detective Matt Guardian in a search for the vicious attacker. The bodies start piling up, and evidence points to someone or something lurking in the sewers beneath the city. The investigation leads them to the creepy Dr. Kovacs and his Phoenix Life Extension Foundation, which may hold the key to a horrific secret that has been kept hidden for 20 years. Should enthrall fans of the science-gone-awry genre made popular by Robin Cook and Michael Crichton, as well as readers of horror and monster lit.
Michael GannonCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
