Blood Ties-Kay Hooper

Blood Ties
Kay Hooper
Bantam, Jan 26 2010, $26.00
ISBN: 9780553804867

Near Serenade, Tennessee, the remains of a butchered man and woman are found. The FBI Special Crimes Unit (SCU) led by Bishop and including his wife Miranda is sent to investigate. The unit moves into a nearby B&B, and quickly concludes that the male was meant for immediate finding while the female was not.

Meanwhile a sniper begins killing people and something is interfering with the special skills of the SCU team. Unsure of Hollis Templeton’s rapidly changing paranormal skills since Touching Evil. and he does not want to use Special Investigator Diana Brisco as the Lodge incident is thirty crow miles away (see Chill of Fears). However, Bishop has no choice. The only hope SCU has to stop what they increasingly believe is an inhuman evil is Diana using her unique psychic ability that enables her to walk in what she calls the void of color Gray Time to communicate with spirit guides. However she must be careful how long her spirit remains in Gray Time as too long means never returning to her body; an adversary plans to strand her there.

This is an exciting Special Crimes Unit police procedural in which several team members play key roles including others not mentioned above. A glossary after the novel provides a who’s who of SCU and their skills and appearances; this helps keep track as twelve members participate as do the Haven Operatives (bios also in the back). The story line is fast-paced from the moment local Pageant County Sheriff sexagenarian Duncan tells Miranda that neither he nor his department has ever seen let alone handle a case like this one and never takes a stuttering step from there. Fans of SCU will relish the twelfth SCU investigation as someone or something has brought the team to Tennessee to destroy them physically and spiritually.

Harriet Klausner