TRUTH CATCHER

A forensic psychologist’s attempt to prevent the imminent release of a dangerous prisoner is complicated by a distress call from an old friend.

While interviewing inmate Daryl Collins in a Seattle prison, Dr. Breeze Copens gets a sudden vision of an imperiled little girl in a blue dress. Having such a vision is not unusual; Breeze, a synesthete, works from paranormal messages like voices that she sees as colors. But this vision disturbs her and, along with her evaluation, convinces her that Collins is a danger, even though his clean record makes his release seem a fait accompli until he’s upstaged by a disturbing phone call from an unidentified teenager. Breeze traces the call to Lily, the distressed daughter of Jena Jensen, one of Breeze’s closest college friends. After returning to her remote home on Blackbeard’s Isle in North Carolina, Breeze sets in motion a search into Collins’s past, then travels to Chicago unannounced to see Jena. She’s not the vibrant young woman Breeze remembers, but a lethargic drone, totally under the psychological control of her husband, Jerry. Breeze, who suspects physical abuse as well, can’t get Jena to leave, but takes a leery Lily back home to North Carolina. Surprises and dangers await Breeze in both plots.

Salter (Prison Blues, 2002, etc.) writes compellingly about the criminal mind. Though the story is overstuffed, the appealing heroine is worth return engagements.