Hot Lights, Cold Steel

In Lyle's so-so second thriller featuring Huntsville, Ala., criminal consultant and lumber company owner Dub Walker (after Stress Fracture), Walker's college crush, Miranda Edwards, asks for his help in tracing her wayward 18-year-old daughter, Noel. Noel, who's been paying for her higher education by turning tricks, hasn't been heard of since going on a date with a friend 10 days earlier. The assignment, which has a personal resonance for Walker (his sister, Jill, was abducted and never found), morphs into something quite different after two corpses turn up in a shallow grave with wounds consistent with some kind of surgical procedure. Walker's investigation alternates with the perils of Alejandro Diaz, the utterly unsympathetic lowlife who's responsible for burying the two cadavers. The clich%C3%A9d climax will leave few readers satisfied. (June)