By Alex Kava
4.5 Stars
Action/Adventure/Suspense
Adult
I
read this book in snippets of spare time between everything else I
worked at this week. It's a best selling thriller and it lived up to
its billing.
The
good and the great was that it was well written and hard to put down.
It didn't drag anywhere. I didn't spot any lapses in the narrative
where something didn't seem to make sense. A good mix of predictable
and unpredictable. The characters were all very real and human. Even
the villians had understandable motives. Maggie O'Dell is the heroine
and she works as an expert criminal profiler. Her partner R. J. Tully
clearly is secondary which works fine for me. She gets to deal with
the autopsy of an FBI agent who happened to be a friend and several
young women apparently killed by a serial killer. The cases are all
linked to Reverend Joseph Everett a charismatic religious leader/nut
job.
There
wasn't much that I disliked. The first, I'm not sure is the author's
fault. The back of the novel cover finishes with "Maggie
realizes the only way to find out is by using her own mother, a
member of Everett's church, as a pawn in a deadly trap." That
didn't happen in the copy I read. Her mother was definitely a pawn by
not because of anything Maggie did or didn't do.
The
climax was dramatic and surprising but I felt the heroine came off as
a helpless spectator. I don't know why but I didn't come out of that
completely satisfied as a reader. I found the villains to
be a little over the top whacked out, but in all honesty that is more
personal taste than anything else. Don't let it put you off
reading the book if this type of story is your cup of tea. Definitely
an adult book though. I wouldn't recommend this for younger readers.
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