All the Colors of Night
Fogg Lake, Book #2
By Jayne Ann Krentz
ISBN: 1984806815 (ISBN13: 9781984806819)
Author’s website: jayneannkrentz.com
Brought to you by OBS reviewer Omar
Synopsis
North Chastain possesses a paranormal talent that gives him the ability to track down the most dangerous psychic criminals. When his father suddenly falls into a coma, North is convinced it was caused by a deadly artifact traced back to the days of a secret government laboratory known only as the Bluestone Project. North knows his only hope of saving his father is to find the artifact. He is good when it comes to tracking down killers but to locate the relic, he’s going to need help from a psychic who knows the shadowy world of obsessive collectors, deceptive dealers, and ruthless raiders…
With her reputation in ruins after a false accusation, antique expert Sierra Raines is looking for a fresh start. She turns to the murky backwaters of the paranormal artifacts trade, finding and transporting valuable objects with a psychic provenance. When North Chastain approaches her for help, Sierra takes him on as a client, though not without reservations. North represents the mysterious Foundation, the secretive organization established to police the underworld populated by psychic criminals and those, like Sierra, who make a living in the shadows of that world.
North and Sierra soon find themselves at the scene of The Incident that occurred decades ago in Fogg Lake. The town and its residents were forever changed by the disaster in the nearby Bluestone Project labs. The pair unearth shocking truths about what happened that fateful night, but they are playing with fire—someone in town knows what they’ve discovered and will do anything to make sure the secrets stay buried. (Goodreads)
Review
All the Colors of Night starts with Sierra Raines finishing a drop-off gone wrong with a client. Sierra is a go-between, a middleman in the underground world of paranormal objects, currently working at the Vault. While Sierra has started to make a name for herself among the go-betweens in Seattle and is one of the best to authenticate relics, she is still trying to find her calling. That same night, but in Las Vegas, North Chastian, a cleaner for the Foundation, is trying to unwind in a local bar from a complete case, but his health condition is making it harder for him, North is going psy-blind. In the last couple of weeks, his visual abilities to see psychic energies have been diminishing and started to cause him hallucinations that may make him go mad if he doesn’t use the special glasses made for him at Halcyon Manor.
Instead of celebrating with the other cleaners, he goes home. North lives in the mansion of his grandfather, Griffin Chastian, who was a magician, psy-engineer, and a traitor. While North doesn’t fully sleep for fear of hallucinating, his power nap is interrupted when Victor Arganbright calls him back to work because the mission concerns his father, Chandler. During the retrieval of an artifact, Chandler was attacked and is now in a psychic coma. North packs a bag and leaves for Seattle to find out what happened to his father.
When time starts to run out for North and the Foundation with Chandler’s health debilitating, Victor pulls some strings with the Vault to get the best go-between to help North track the artifact that was used against his father. Sierra is that go-between and for a good commission, she will find that artifact.
I continue to like the Fogg Lake series; its theme of psychics and government agencies is a great combination. The characters of Sierra and North give us a new point of view to this strange world of psy-energy users and the different types of jobs that are out there. At the same time, reading how these two characters interact within the world was very fun starting with the deal gone wrong at the beginning and North pulling out an agency badge from time to time.
I liked North, his story of losing his visual abilities and going psy-blind was very interesting, and a little suspicious about how his illness started. His family history and connection to the Bluestone experiment was interesting for future books in the series, and the types of experiments his grandfather Griffin Chastian did with crystal light was a good addition to the types of powerful artifacts in this world. I liked North’s journey during the story and how he found his true calling after learning more about his grandfather’s work.
The psychic powers that Sierra wield were very exciting and her different types of abilities seem to be attributed to the explosion of the Fogg Lake labs that changed the place. Compared to Catalina in the previous book, Sierra has crystal light and energy manipulation, empathic powers and is good at finding hot artifacts saturated with paranormal energy. Reading about her search for the perfect job (after she was fired and accused of fraud in the auction house she used to work at) was a nice side storyline that paid well at the end with small hints here and there across the story.
Other characters that I liked were Sierra’s parents, Byron and Allegra Raines. While they are first introduced as hippies by other characters once we see them in action and saving Chandler’s life their perspective changes not only for the reader but to the other members of the Foundation. I liked how fast Victor took interest in them and even considers asking for their help in the future.
In All the Colors of Night, we get to see a couple of characters from the first book, Oliva LeClair, Victor and Lucas from the Foundation, and Harmony the Oracle of Fogg Lake. We also meet new characters such as Ambrose Jonas who is the owner of the Vault and has ties to Fogg Lake, but he is immersed in the underground world of artifacts trade. While they all help in some way in this story, we can see how author Jayne Ann Krentz is preparing the narrative for future book encounters for these characters. The last pages of this book hint at what awaits Olivia in her own journey.
While there were many villains in this story that were mostly crazy or delusional, there is one person that keeps working in the background, Gwendolyn Swan and her sister. Gwendolyn appears to be trustworthy and helps the characters, she and her sister are planning something to do with the Vortex lab and the creation of psychic weapons. At this point, it still seems as they are working on it, but they have plans for the inhabitants of Fogg Lake. I can’t wait to see what stories the author writes for them.
I cannot wait to read what waits for all these characters in future books, and the powers and abilities author Jayne Ann Krentz will create for them. Most of all, I truly want to know more about the Bluestone projects and why they decided to shut it down.
If you liked Jayne Ann Krentz and their work, then I recommend All the Colors of Night. Matchmaking can be easy when you see the auras of those in love and all the colors in the night.
