Sleeping with Fear

Sleeping with Fear by Kay Hooper

Riley Crane woke up fully dressed, a gun under her pillow, and covered in blood. Even more frightening, she didn't remember what happened the night before. In fact, she barely remembered the previous three weeks.

An ex-army officer, now a federal agent assigned to the Special Crimes Unit, Riley was a chameleon - a clairvoyant who could blend in with her surroundings, be anyone or anything she chose to be. The SCU's expert on the occult, she'd been sent to the beachfront cottage on Opal Island by her enigmatic chief, Noah Bishop, to investigate reports of dangerous occult activity.

But that was three weeks ago. Now she's awoken to discover that she's got a sexy new man in her life and an unreliable memory, and that the clairvoyant abilities she's always depended on to protect her are MIA. Worse yet, with SCU resources stretched thinner than ever before, Riley is alone and without backup, feeling her way through a deadly game of blindman's buff, where no one around her is quite who or what they seem. And a bizarre murder is only the first jarring reminder of how high the stakes really are.

Bishop wants Riley off the case. So does powerful local D.A. Ash Prescott. Both her old retired army buddy Gordon Skinner and Sheriff Jake Ballard believe she can catch a vicious killer. But one of these four men knows exactly what's going on in this coastal community, and that's knowledge Riley desperately needs. For what Riley can't remember is more than enough to cost her her life. This time evil isn't just closer than she thinks - it's already there.

--Sleeping with Fear by Kay Hooper, Copyright © 2006 by Kay Hooper


My Review:

To wake up covered in blood and no memory of how it got there is a great way to grab the reader’s interest from page one, I have to admit. Once again, Kay Hooper steps away from the conventional murder mystery set-up and throws a handful of twists at her protagonist Riley, including amnesia, lost time, a man she doesn’t remember falling in love with and a grisly murder. Oh, and Satanists.

Yeah, I said Satanists. Seems this grisly murder has definite satanic hallmarks and Riley, being the SCU’s occult expert, is the natural choice to help the sheriff solve the murder. But can she, with her memories of the past three weeks gone, her psychic senses AWOL, the aforementioned lost time and the constant drain on her physical energy reserves? She has to, otherwise, she might never be normal again.

I give this story FOUR STARS.