Review by David Steinberg, Writer, Albuquerque Journal, March 21, 2004

Albuquerque author Lisa Polisar is wise to readers: She knows they're busier than ever, so they don't like to waste their time.

With that in mind, Polisar likes to grab readers into her novels from the very first line.

"You have to hook people really fast and provide atmosphere really fast without falling into overdone formulas," she said.

Here is the opening paragraph of KNEE DEEP, her new psychological mystery novel: "The winter sky was sated with death. Tamara Kindrel felt this certainty in the pulp of her bones, as if some wrinkle in the fabric of reality, maybe just her reality, had bled fear into the collective consciousness of every scientist, or every tourist, who drove north to such a pristine, disquieting place."

Set in New Mexico, the story tracks Kindrel's disappearance after she had visited a mine. Two years later, someone falls down a shaft in the same mine and lands in a cave containing artifacts ... and a human skeleton.

Before waiting for confirmation on the identity of the bones, the sheriff joins with a Bureau of Land Management law enforcement officer to track Kindrel's killer.

There's a different cast of characters in KNEE DEEP than was in her debut novel, the psychological thriller BLACKWATER TANGO.

"I'd be more marketable if I had recurring characters, but I get bored easily. I need to write a book that's as fun for me to read it," said Polisar, who also pens short stories and book reviews for magazines.

Thrillers, she noted, are structurally different from mysteries. Mysteries are linear while thrillers are convoluted and can have three or four distinct threads running through them at different speeds.

On the heels of the first edition of KNEE DEEP, the second edition of the paperback will be coming out soon — but not because of how well it's selling.  The reason is promotional. The back cover of the second edition will have several blurbs, such as this one from Tony Hillerman: "KNEE DEEP gives us a fresh new plot idea, fast action, good characters and lots of suspense. Don't miss it!"