Salvatore Lombino has been using a handful of pseudonyms for almost 50 years, and his two best-known personae—social dramatist Evan Hunter and police-procedural scribe Ed McBain—finally get a chance to "collaborate" on the author's latest novel, Candyland. The "Hunter" half of the book considers the after-hours activities of wealthy Los Angeles architect Benjamin Thorpe, during which he habitually prowls for sex once his business day is done. On a trip to New York, the unhappily married Thorpe thumbs through his carefully coded Rolodex of mistresses, and, finding no comfort there, cruises lobby bars for hookers. While Hunter describes the intricacies of how a potential john tracks down a prostitute, he simultaneously pulls up the roots of Thorpe's insatiable need, which the protagonist confronts in a quiet apartment after a bloody altercation. In the second half of Candyland, "McBain" patrols his usual beat at the 87th Precinct, represented this time by Special Victims Unit detective Emma Boyle. Investigating the rape and murder of an erotic masseuse, Boyle works alongside an aloof homicide detective and a brusque, profane vice-squad veteran. As the three triangulate on possible suspects, McBain focuses closely on Boyle, a soon-to-be-divorced female cop whose male counterparts identify more with the rapists than with the victims. The two halves of the book are united by the massage parlor Thorpe visited on the night of the murder, and the through-plot is driven by the possibility that Thorpe might be Boyle's perpetrator. But Candyland is concerned with more than the solution of a murder mystery: The puzzle Hunter and McBain really want to solve involves men who are constantly on the make, putting carnal gratification above their families, their jobs, and their ability to respect the humanity of the women they're hustling. As always, both of Lombino's guises offer tales of foot-tapping tension, eye-popping sensation, and train-wreck-in-slow-motion horror. But the shocks arise less from the surprise plot twists or graphic details of sex crimes than from the revelation that a man can reveal all of his secrets with a seemingly innocuous smile and wink. It just takes a sensitive woman to pick up the signals, or an author with many faces.