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'Fault Lines' by Anna Salter

Hard to find fault with Salter’s ‘Lines’

Thursday, January 01, 1998

By Karen Carlin, Post-Gazette Staff Writer

	Fault Lines By Anna Salter Anna Salter $22.00

Fault Lines” is the second novel to feature heroine Michael Stone, but this mystery was my introduction to Anna Salter’s feisty forensic psychologist. As soon as I met her, I liked her. She’s smart, witty, sarcastic, compassionate and outspoken. And she doesn’t take any bull from anyone — not friends, superiors or homicidal maniacs.

But those qualities also make Stone a trying friend. She’s very protective of her privacy and won’t let anyone help her, least of all her lover, who happens to be the sheriff of the small Vermont town where she lives. Oh, and sometimes her profession threatens her safety and the lives of people close to her.

So Stone can be crabby at times, and in “Fault Lines,” she has every reason to be crabby — and worried. Life gets tense when she discovers a particularly nasty child molester, Alex B. Willy, has been released from prison on a technicality. Stone didn’t put Willy there, but she interviewed him while trying to develop a psychological profile of a child molester.

The self-absorbed Willy told the truth about his “conquests” and scamming of parents, all of which Stone tape-recorded. Now Willy is anxious to get rid of Stone and the tapes, but first, he’ll play with her mind, infiltrating her private world and threatening her friends and patients of her regular medical practice.

What follows is a tightly written, fast-moving, no-waste-of-characters thriller. Before it’s over, Stone will feel like she’s standing on a fault line, waiting for it to give way. She’ll have to face her fears, her feelings for other people and her own set of ethics.

Salter has much to draw from, since the author is a forensic psychologist and an authority on sex offenders. She mentions schools of psychological thought and quotes a few sages, but she doesn’t let her prose be bogged down with medical jargon.

Stone’s reasoning is easy to follow, although you may disagree with her insistence on handling things on her own.

Readers who enjoyed “Shiny Water,” Salter’s first novel about Stone, will appreciate the author’s references to the previous tale. But those mentions don’t interfere if this is your first ride with the good doctor. They just make you want to put the first novel on your “to read” list.

Whichever novel you choose to start with, you won’t be throwing this Stone away.