Lesbian San Francisco homicide detective Kate Martinelli finds crime invading her own life as her lover asks for breathing space in their relationship and her partner’s young stepdaughter is kidnapped. By the author of A Grave Talent. I can’t think of any moments in recent mysteries that equal the sheer physical and emotional terror of Kate Martinelli’s discovery–about halfway through this third book in Laurie R. King’s excellent series, now available in paperback–that the 12-year-old girl she is looking after has disappeared. Kate, a just-out lesbian, is under fire for that and other reasons at the San Francisco Police Department, and the missing girl is the daughter of the woman whom Kate’s work partner has just married. Kate’s relationship with her life partner, Lee, is in serious trouble, and she has strong feelings about wanting children of her own. The motel from which the girl has vanished is in the middle of a notorious serial killer’s terrortory. As she does in her equally smart and visceral series about Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes (The Beekeeper’s Apprentice, A Monstrous Regiment of Women, A Letter of Mary), King balances all the elements perfectly, and keeps us involved every inch of the way. Her other Martinelli books are A Grave Talent and To Play the Fool.