Haven
Sep 6, 2012
Author: Kay Cooper
Publisher: Berkley Hardcover Original
Publication Date: July 31, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-425-25874-3
At first I was hesitant to really dive into this book after reading the prologue. I feared that it would contain whole chapters of what I call "torture porn"- those overwhelmingly violent descriptions of rape, torture and murder that seem to be the ideal for crime books these days.
Thankfully I soon discovered that while there is a serial torturer and murderer in the story, each chapter with him in it stops just short of any events occurring. So while this may lead to an abrupt ending of a chapter, I would rather that then vile descriptions.
The premise of this story is that the special crimes unit specializing in using psychics has an operative, Jessie, who's past memories of a horrific event during her teenage years is blocked, but not completely so it continues to encroach on her present. She returns home to her estranged sister Emma's hotel to try to remember just what it was that caused the memory loss and nightmares. Meanwhile Emma herself has been having psychic events since a horseback riding incident 2 years before. Could these two events be related?
There are parts of this story where I felt left out, obvious references or people from previous books that I would have known had I read those first, but they didn't necessarily impede on the story, just left a little question mark.
I did find the ending to be abrupt and a little too clean, but not so much that I would say avoid the book, just be prepared for things to wind up quickly.
A nice fast read, I stayed up a little late and read it in one day. A mark of a good mystery - you want to keep reading and find out what happens.
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Reviewed by Idgie. If you would like to have the Dew review a book, please contact me at dewonthekudzu@gmail.com
