SPEAK NO EVIL

Author: Allison Brennan ISBN: 0345495020 2/2007 SUSPENSE Publisher: BALLANTINE

Silence is deadly. The murder of eighteen-year-old Angie Vance was exceptionally vile–her mouth was sealed with glue, an obscenity scrawledwas across her skin, and she was suffocated in a garbage bag. The killing seems personal, so police detective Carina Kincaid focuses her efforts on the victim’s much older ex-boyfriend, Steve Thomas. But without physical evidence, Carina can’t make a collar or a case. She also can’t stop Sheriff Nick Thomas, the prime suspect’s brother, from conducting his own unwelcome investigation. Though Nick is still scarred and unsteady from a recent confrontation with a serial killer, he’s determined to prove his brother’s innocence. But his confidence is shaken when he learns of Steve’s dark side, and when a friend of the murdered girl meets a similarly gruesome fate. With no time to lose, Carina and Nick work together to trap a psychopath, before another unlucky woman faces an unspeakable end.

RRAH's THOUGHTS AND PONDERINGS:

Move over Boogeyman, you have been relegated to number two on the most scary list by Allison Brennan's monsters.

Ms. Brennan, who burst onto the writing scene last year with a truly spectacular trilogy, is back with the first of another trilogy designed to scare the daylights out of readers.

This newcomer has a real flair for creating creepy, gruesome, seemingly normal human predators whose twisted minds do unspeakable things to their victims ...in great detail.

Beware, for Allison Brennan's work is not for the squeamish. Ms. Brennan delves into twisted, tormented minds with relish.

Nick Thomas, a terrific secondary character from last year's THE HUNT gets a starring role in SPEAK NO EVIL. And ...Wow! Nick, fighting his own demons after an up-close-and-personal tangle with a serial killer in THE HUNT, is once again using his knowledge to track another sicko in San Diego. This quiet, honorable, lonely man is a fantastic character. Ms. Brennan is to be commended for giving Nick such depth, such insight and such compassion.

Dark, chilling SPEAK NO EVIL moves at a fast clip while quickly drawing readers into a living hell. Ms. Brennan's efforts are dynamite. SPEAK NO EVIL is an edge-of-your-seat, wild, twisty, chilling read.

And the sick puppy portrayed in SPEAK NO EVIL is terrifying.

Debbie Jett