Dead Scared/ Sharon (SJ) Bolton / 378 pgs

This is the second book in Bolton's Lacey Flint series. Lacey is a British police officer with a very murky past and a sometimes reckless regard for the rules and her own safety. She's still getting over the trauma she suffered in the first book--I liked this realistic aspect--when she's asked by her one-time lover, a higher level officer named Mark, to go undercover at Cambridge University. Mark almost died in the last book and is still recovering physically. It's clear these two care about each other but there is a lot keeping them apart. i.e. the job, the past trauma, their fragile emotions.

Lacey is sent into Cambridge as a supposedly anxious, bordering on depressed, undergraduate because there has been a pattern of suspicious suicides at the university that has some people concerned. Honestly, Lacey didn't do a very good job of being a meek, high-strung student but she's only there for two weeks as things escalate quickly, so... This story is exceptionally creepy, dealing with people who purposefully bully and drive emotionally fragile young women into suicide just for kicks. It's definitely not for the faint of heart. I'm a big fan of Bolton's books and this is a solid entry in the Flint series.