Stranger in the Room

October 15, 2012
Williams's debut, The Stranger You Seek, introduced detective Keye Street, a brilliant police officer whose drinking ruined her career. Now she is a private detective whose cousin Miki has been targeted by a psychopath. Street must overcome her skepticism (Miki's history of addiction makes her an unreliable witness) and hunt down her cousin's stalker. When she starts investigating, it becomes clear that the stalker is in fact a serial killer who, far from being a figment of Miki's imagination, is very real and very dangerous. Soon he turns his attention to Keye, and that attention may prove fatal to everyone she knows and loves. . Street is flawed and human, and readers will empathize with her struggles just as they rejoice in her successes. Williams paints a skillful portrait of the new South, as seen through the lens of an outsider/insider (Street is adopted and Chinese, and race relations are always an undercurrent) and her supporting characters are colorful and unique. Readers of this fast-paced thriller will be eager for the next Street tale.\t"Agent: Victoria Sanders, Victoria Sanders & Associates.

November 26, 2012
Williams’s second novel featuring Atlanta private investigator Keye Street finds the former FBI profiler and recovering alcoholic working three cases. Her cousin Miki Ashton—who has previously suffered from mental health and drug problems—sends Keye searching for a mysterious stalker, while the PI’s significant other, detective Aaron Rauser, taps her to help profile and locate a vicious serial killer. The third case proves stranger: it involves chicken feed and a crematorium. Narrator Ann Marie Lee—who provides Keye with a slight Southern twang—captures the character’s strength of purpose, frustration, and vulnerability. Lee’s approach to other characters ranges from the uninspired—Keye’s cousin and many of the book’s females tend to sound a little alike—to the spectacular: Keye’s stoner assistant sounds alternately spacey and snarky, and her hotel chef speaks with a thick Slavic accent that might pass muster in the Balkans. Lee’s pacing is solid throughout, but her performance catches fire as the book approaches its weirdly creepy but definitely thrilling finale. A Bantam hardcover.