WITH CHILD

Temporarily bereft of both her lover, Lee Cooper, who—still recovering from the wound that plagued her all through To Play the Fool (p. 30)—has taken off for Puget Sound, and her partner, Al Hawkin, preoccupied with his upcoming marriage to medievalist Jani Cameron, Inspector Kate Martinelli agrees to help Jani's preteen daughter Jules track down Dio, a homeless boy she met in a San Francisco park over the summer. The hunt for Dio is routine, but in the time it takes to locate him, Kate finds herself drawing unusually close to precocious Jules—and she's doubly devastated when, in the middle of their car trip north to celebrate Jani's honeymoon with Al, Jules disappears from their motel. The local police assume she was abducted and killed, horribly, by the fearsome Snoqualmie Strangler; the press buzzes with even more hurtful rumors about the flamboyantly lesbian cop and her butch-cut young companion; and Jani, who obviously wishes Kate were dead, makes her wish she were too. Without any hope that she'll find Jules alive, Kate still searches frantically for some clue about her fate that will allow her closure and mourning; and for that clue she can only turn, logically enough, to Dio—in a beautifully nuanced transformation of the traditional roles of detective, assistant, and victim. Like a slow-burning fire, the story makes you hurt deeply for King's characters before you realize what's happening to you. (Author tour)