Richard Mahler, Book Reviewer
published in Crosswinds Weekly

Albuquerque author (and Crosswinds Weekly contributor) Lisa Polisar conjures up the dark world of a depraved but brilliant serial killer who gets his kicks from terrorizing vulnerable young women in this impressive debut novel, which features the equally smart psychologist Gena Hollender as the madman's profiler, pursuer, and wayward victim.  Hollender is a savvy Manhattanite who would rather renovate her old brownstone and cultivate exotic plants than track down suspected murderer Victor Trikonis in Maine.  But when duty calls, via the compelling invitations of two former colleagues, also her lovers, Hollender feels she has no choice ... Polisar is at her best when getting inside the head of her protagonist: "Everything inside  her said no.  Every impulse of conscious thought and reasoning, every molecule of her body said the same thing.  No.  But a part of her, when she was working at the FBI's National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime, had felt more alive than ever ... Some part of her was still hanging on."

The reader is finally drawn into Hollender's deepening obsession with her nemesis when the frequency of murders increases, and the threat to her own life becomes more real.  In the end, the pursuit becomes as much a matter of personal vengeance and pride as the desire to stop a psychopath from slitting more throats.  Blackwater Tango takes its time to deliver the dramatic tension demanded of a crime-genre thriller, and the payoff is worth the wait.  Gena Hollender - and Lisa Polisar - are two names worth watching for in years ahead.