This series sets up a juxtaposition of the "bad" cop Paul Winter against the "good" cop Joe Faraday. I guess we are supposed to like Faraday best, but, frankly, I'm not too fond of either of them at this point.

By the end of the first book in the series, "Turnstone" I thought I had begun to understand Faraday a bit and to like him, but he lost ground for me in this entry. He seems a bit of a chauvinist in his treatment of women, for starters. I mean, is it really necessary to call all of them "love"? Is that just a British thing? It seems the equivalent of an American detective calling all the women he meets "honey." Quite unappetizing.

As for Winter, well, we are supposed to feel sorry for him because his wife is dying of cancer and HE can't cope! So he leaves his dying wife alone while he goes out on a crusade against the bad guys. A crusade in which he will be judge, jury, and executioner. There's no argument that the bad guy that he selects for his crusade is a very bad guy indeed and deserves everything that happens to him. But Winter's wife "deserves" nothing of what is happening to her. She gets my sympathy. Winter, not so much.

The women detectives in these stories come somewhat closer to being complete human beings and sympathetic characters, or is that just because I am a woman? Am I being a female chauvinist reader?

The crimes that the unit is investigating this time around are sexual crimes against women. The fact that some of the crimes take place in a surgical theater while the victims are under anesthesia just makes them all the more revolting.

Hurley is a promising writer and I am assured that the NEXT entry in this series is the best so far, and so I will read on, because I really want to like Joe Faraday, but I have to say this one was just a bit disappointing.