This is another book given to my by AT. This one is your typical murder mystery, no flashy trips into the future, no flying cars traveling at 300 kilometers per hour, or rather miles per hour, no one getting genetically enhanced, or “improved”. Hey, have you noticed that in the future some countries still have not embraced the international standards for measurement.
This book does have a few things that make it an interesting read. The first thing is that this book has not one, but two characters who have some sort of sixth sense. I’m not talking about mom having eyes in the back of her head type thing, but a genuine ability to pick up vibes from “things”. Well, ok the book might have two of these people in it but only one has the ability to use and control the ESP power, the other one is kinda like mom’s ability to “pick up” on things, and sometimes even receive mental pictures, we all receive mental pictures, but this girl gets them in colour, and while her eyes are open.
I think the rest of us get our mental pictures while we sleep, and mostly in black and white, or faded colours at the most.
Although, many years ago during my, oh, 6th attempt to quick smoking I tried using the nicotine patch, this would have been not long after they were developed, around 1990 or 1991, and man did I have the most vivid colorful realistic dreams ever. I always said that I would go back on the patch if only for the dreams. I did finally quit smoking in 1997.
Enough about dreams, oh wait just one more thing you should check out the Blog called “The REM Files” the link is on my sidebar, some interesting stuff, ok so now back to Dead before Dark, the storyline is carried quite well, I found myself actually slowing down, as I neared the end of the book, I did not want the story to end, I wanted to allow the suspense to build, not that Wendy was not doing a good job of that herself, I felt that as I neared the end of the book, the story deserved my entire focus, and unlike the beginning or middle of this book I found myself reading every word.
Our main character becomes entangled in a suspenseful mystery that actually started 30 years in the past, no we did not time travel back to have a look, as long as you agree that the telling of memories is not actually traveling, well physically anyway. Our psychic is the main character, she along with an old friend (linked to a murder victim), a new friend (retired FBI dude), who originally investigated a serial killer who’s trail went cold and who stopped killing, some family members and other various other cops and FBI all end up tracking what appears to be the same killer 30 years later.
Perhaps the killing 30 years ago stopped because the killer was arrested and jailed for another crime, or he just decided to take a break, is he still in jail and someone else started up after hearing his stories, after all when you are in the big house you tend to brag on you’re “badness” to ensure that you are not on the bottom of the food chain, or so I’m told.
We do hear from the serial killer throughout the book, we get into his thoughts, we get hints, little caveats, but never any real idea of who he is, how he is tied to the various players and why he is killing all these people. Of course he does leave us clues, small links to the past, and to the players, he wants Lucinda to figure it out. Oh, who is Lucinda, right I have not introduce her properly have I. Lucinda is our main character she is the police detective/ESP sixth sence, eyes in the back of her head, “I have a bad feeling about this”, all around likeable, young, rich, perhaps soon to be heroine of our story.
The killer wants to be found, if you believe every book and TV show with a serial killer, and he wants, yes we are sure it is a he, he wants Lucinda to do the finding, after all every clue, every murder is leading her and the rest of the police and FBI right into his maze of confusion and ?????.
Will Lucinda lead the police to the killer, will she become a victim, or will she just go crazy as the clues start pointing to her as the motivation for the killing, will the voices in her head overcome her, break her, perhaps the killer is not a man after all.
One thing that I was not ecstatic about in this book is the way in which Wendy moved between her story lines, I had to go back to the last paragraph or sometime further to see if I had missed something, as she moved from one storyline to the next she did not bring me with her, as a reader I mean. I think that Wendy should try to trim down on her descriptions, not everything requires a detailed description, and some things need no description at all, here is an example. “Have a seat, want a can of pop? Jason asked gesturing at the vending machine that works.” I never did find out about the pop machine that did not work? Sometimes less is better.
I will read another Wendy Coursi Staub book sometime, as I believe she knows how to create suspense and intertwine her audience with her characters.
Brian
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