CHILL OF FEAR

Psychics converge on a Tennessee Mountain resort where big trouble is a-comin’ and dead people are a-lurkin’. Round two in Hooper’s Fear trilogy (Hunting Fear, 2004).

Responding to forces larger than themselves, members of the FBI’s Special Crimes Unit (variously skilled “sensitives” recruited over the years by Agent Noah Bishop) have positioned themselves at The Lodge, a mountain resort catering to the special needs of the famous and powerful. Special needs would be your basic romp with the mistress, flirtation with the housemaid, quick detox, that sort of thing, all accomplished in an atmosphere of total discretion and off the books. Alas, it seems that one of the special needs of someone associated with the grand Victorian spa seems to be murder. Ever since construction began around the turn of the 20th century there has been an unusually high death rate in The Lodge’s neighborhood. Not part of the nervous FBI crew hanging around, but of great interest to them is pretty, rich Diana Brisco, a guest at The Lodge referred by her shrink for a course of art therapy in the relaxed, caring atmosphere. Diana has spent two thirds of her life drugged to the gills by a succession of doctors hoping to treat blackouts and other plaguesome symptoms that have made life hell for two out of her three decades. What Diana and the men of science have failed to understand (psychic gifts not being covered in med school) is that Diana is a first-rate medium. Special Crimes Unit agent Quentin Hayes, whose psychic gift is the occasional peek at the future, recognizes what the docs didn’t, and gently leads her to an understanding of her powers. Weaned off her medications, Diana begins to understand that the juvenile murder victims she’s been spending time with outside of painting class really need her help. An Evil Thing is about to return to The Lodge.

The spine occasionally tingles, but if you can’t buy the psychic bit . . .