FEAR THE DARK (BISHOP/SPECIAL CRIMES UNIT, BOOK #16) BY KAY HOOPER: BOOK REVIEW

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Fear the Dark

Bishop/Special Crimes Unit, Book #16

By  Kay Hooper

ISBN: : 9780425280720

Author’s Website: http://www.kayhooper.com/

 

Fear the DarkReview brought to you by OBS reviewer Andra
Synopsis:

In New York Times bestselling author Kay Hooper’s new novel, an SCU team investigates a troubling string of disappearances. But how do you find someone who has vanished without a trace?

Something strange is happening in the small mountain town of Serenity, Tennessee. People going on routine errands never reach their destination. It’s as if they simply disappear. Over the past few weeks, it’s happened to five men and women—and now a child.

The local police chief calls the FBI, and a team from the Special Crimes Unit is immediately sent in. Agents Lucas and Samantha Jordan, partners in work and in life, have very different abilities. Samantha is clairvoyant and Lucas possesses a unique ability to find the lost or abducted. With them are new partners Dante Swann, a medium, and Robbie Hodge, a telepath.

The town is already on the edge of panic, but the mysterious events take a sinister turn when a body unrelated to the missing persons case surfaces and one of the SCU agents vanishes. Now, the team’s hunt for the lost has turned into something very personal…and very dangerous.

 

Review:

Fear the Dark is a gripping read which kept me engrossed and entertained for the entire length of the book…and at one point (about 60% done) I could NOT put the book down.  Right from the beginning the intrigue began and I just knew the ride would be an intense and bumpy one

Jonah Riggs was barley awake, when his phone rang. “It better be good”. “Sorry, Chief, but there’s something you need to see.” Sarah Waters didn’t sound all that sorry, but she was his lead detective…..”It’s Saturday, Sarah. My day off. My first day off in three damned weeks.  Can’t you handle it?” “No,” she said simply.

As the first two disappearances are discovered and investigated by Sarah and Jonah (two teenagers running away from home in the middle of the night), we get the sense that something is different about this:

 Sarah follows the two sets of footprints that were visible going down the bank and to the flat area. “The prints were absolutely perfect, showing no slipping or sliding.  The boot prints and shoeprints were side by side down the bank, to the flat.  Where they stopped.  Where they just……stopped.”…..”So, where are those kids,” Jonah said slowly.  “And how the hell did they just…..vanish?”

“Jonah didn’t voice what he felt, that what they were looking at was not exactly an ending-but the beginning of something.  The beginning of something bad.  The beginning of something that was going to shake his town to its foundations.

Now if that wasn’t enough to put the heebie jeebies into you, I don’t know what will. There were other odd events (clock stoppages to name but one) which added to the fear factor. All of this certainly set the tone for the book for me.

And occasionally, there were lighter moments – Serenity had some unusual street names which definitely added to the chuckle factor – a street named “Street”. ☺  Really, who names a street “Street”?  Or lest we forget…the small downtown diner was simply named “diner”.

I found the exploration of how the elite team solved mysteries and integrated with the local law enforcement intriguing.  Once Jonah figured out the commonalities between the kidnap victims….that was it.  Then it was just a race against time.

Kay Hooper never fails to deliver; at least from the limited exposure I have had (two books from the Bishop/Special Crimes Unit series and two books from the Bishop Files series). I am now gathering the beginning books in both series and intend to read them ☺.

 

*OBS would like to thank the publisher for supplying a free copy of this title in exchange for an honest review*