Lightning in a Mirror
Fogg Lake, Book #3
By Jayne Ann Krentz
ISBN13: 9780593337752
Author’s website: jayneannkrentz.com
Brought to you by OBS reviewer Omar
Review
Lightning in a Mirror picks up a couple of weeks after the events of All the Colors of the Night, where we find Olivia LeClair surviving another murder attempt, the Speed Dating Killer. In a moment of intuition, Olivia uses the special camera that she bought at Swan’s Pawnshop and manages to disrupt the aura of the killer and give her time to call for help. Olivia has been working with a consulting agency to try to catch the killer by joining speed dating events, she just didn’t think they would be waiting for her in her building’s parking garage.
In Las Vegas, an invisible man walks up to the Foundation office. He is Harlan Rancourt, whose father used to be the previous president of the Foundation and who everyone thought died with him in the lab explosion. Harlan talks to Victor and Lucas, and tells them that he is the new director of the government agency which is the only client of the Foundation. He asks for them to help him set up a meeting with Olivia LeClair as he believes she is the key to finding the missing Vortex Lab. Harlan tells the men that he has evidence that Oliva is a descendant of the Oracle of the Vortex Lab.
In the following days, Oliva is back again on a speed dating event, to which she paid for the whole season’s events, and it can’t be reimbursed. While she keeps scaring away potential dates, one man sits on her table and answers her question, “If I disappeared tomorrow would you walk into hell to find me?” After the man informs her that his name is Harlan Rancourt, Olivia decides to end the event and get to work with him. They share a meal where he explains what he needs from her and that her mother might have been murdered instead of dying of natural causes as everyone thought.
While walking back to her apartment, they are chased by a man playing a song that lures Olivia to go back to him. Harlan is able to save her, and they now know that somebody else knows about Olivia’s potential connection to Vortex and is trying to kidnap her again.
Time is running out, Harlan and Olivia will need to solve the clues left from Olivia’s late grandmother and mother, and find the missing lab of Vortex, while they escape from an assassin who is also after Vortex.
It was nice to get Olivia’s story and see her go through her own adventures. After being kidnapped in the first book of the series, Olivia needed to find her power, and taking this client from the Foundation was the thing she needed. It was great to see professional Olivia do her best to work with Harlan while trying to find her mother’s killer.
When reading the previous book in the series, it was interesting every time the Foundation was mentioned and how it was seen by people in the community. While I liked that we got to learn a bit more about the Rancourt’s, the previous family that ran the Foundation, I was hoping to get a more exciting story of how the explosion that killed Harlan’s father had happened and why. But still, I like to learn about the things that Harlan did while hiding and the people he met.
When it comes to paranormal powers, this series is always fun to read as we meet characters with powers of the different types that exist in this world. Olivia is able to read the auras of people and as Harlan mentions she’s inclined to the Oracle gene, but most of all she is able to resonate with the crystal in the camera that she found. At the same time, Harlan’s power of illusion or hiding in plain sight was very interesting, such as being able to make others believe he is a normal person or has very low paranormal powers.
While they are considered sort of villains, I liked the scenes where Gwendolyn and her sister Eloisa make appearances. Even though we only saw a little of Eloisa I didn’t expect she would be that close in monitoring Olivia, and the underground rumors of Vortex. I hope that Jayne Ann Krentz writes more in the Fogg Lake world, and we get more stories of what the sisters are up to.
We get to go back to Fogg Lake and see how the town is doing with the Foundation team searching the caves near the town. At the same time, we see Harmony again and get another prophecy from her. Lucas and Victor make their appearances across the story, and I hope we get their get-together or a story of their own.If you’re a fan of Jayne Ann Krentz, then I recommend Lightning in a Mirror. In this story, the location of the Vortex lab is getting closer, and now everyone is on the move to get there first.
