From Publishers Weekly
Hooper (Sense of Evil; Touching Evil; etc.) pits a team of psychic special agents against a diabolical serial killer in the first installment of her new Fear trilogy. Kidnapping would-be victims in Golden, N.C., the murderer sets up a torturous ending for them and then dares the lawmen to arrive in time for a last-second rescue. The primary agent assigned to stop the carnage is Lucas Jordan, who leads the investigation with a unique team of clairvoyant agents. He also gets a significant assist from Samantha Burke, a former lover who ends up on the case when she arrives in Golden working as a sideshow psychic for a traveling carnival. The initial chapters are rather boilerplate as Hooper focuses on the team's futile efforts to save local victims, but the action picks up when the murders turn personal and the kidnapper abducts a cop and then drowns her in a glass tank. His next would-be victim is Golden's sheriff. At the novel's climax, Jordan must get past his emotions to access his own psychic talent when the kidnapper turns his gaze on Samantha Burke. Hooper does a nice job of keeping the psychic material credible, and the murderer's constant shifts in methodology provide a welcome series of surprising plot twists. This is a solid entry in the annals of paranormal crime-solving. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From AudioFile
Psychics and psychopaths, skeptics and seers knock heads in Kay Hooper's well-crafted thriller. Noah Bishop's FBI Special Crimes Unit of precognitive profilers must keep a low profile. SCU Agent Lucas Jordan locates missing people by using his extrasensory abilities. A serial kidnapper/murderer is playing a deadly game with Jordan--and winning. Jordan gets some help from carnival fortune-teller "Zarina," who has "seen" the next kidnapping, but the "carny" connection is bad press for Bishop's unit. Narrator Dick Hill slips fluidly between characters, adding minute vocal quirks that immediately identify the speaker. Boston accents, almost imperceptible shifts for higher-pitched women's voices, gruff or gentle baritones, slight nasality, or the occasional stammer define individuals, adding depth and making them credible. The pace is fast, the plot heart-stopping, and the performance first-rate. S.J.H. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2005, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine

Book Description
He’s no ordinary kidnapper. Not only does he strike again and again, but he collects the ransom, gets away safely, and leaves his helpless hostages dead. Now, after months of eluding the best that law enforcement can put against him, this monster has left nothing in his wake but a cold trail of unconnected victims.

He’s no ordinary cop. Lucas Jordan, a key agent and profiler in Noah Bishop’s Special Crimes Unit, has an extraordinary skill: he locates missing people. But his uncanny ability comes with a price, and his methods rouse mistrust in the hard-nosed cops forced to call him into their investigations.

Now Jordan has come to Clayton County, North Carolina, where the latest in a string of kidnapping victims has turned up dead. Complicating the situation is the presence - and predictions - of someone who’s even more of an outsider than Jordan himself: carnival psychic Samantha Burke, a woman out of his own haunted past. Her warnings meet with skepticism from the local police but spur Jordan on to do what he does best: hunt fear.

But the killer he is hunting is hunting Jordan - and he’s already several moves ahead in a twisted game whose rules Jordan must learn in order to have a fighting chance. For his psychopathic opponent has extended a very personal challenge - and he’s about to threaten the one life the profiler values even more than his own. . . .


Download Description
Kay Hooper is the award-winning author of Sense of Evil, Touching Evil, Whisper of Evil, Once a Thief, Always a Thief, the Shadows trilogy, and more. She lives in North Carolina where she is at work on the next installment in the Fear series.


From the Hardcover edition.

FROM OUR EDITORS

The Barnes & Noble Review
New York Times￯﾿ﾽbestselling author Kay Hooper ratchets up the tension in this fast-paced thriller about a psychic profiler and his hunt for a seemingly invincible murderer. Profiler Lucas Jordan has been able to locate missing people by sensing their fear, the very fear that excites the killer he's trying to find. But there's a twist in the latest kidnapping -- a carnival psychic predicted the crime a week before it happened. Psychic "Zarina" turns out to be Samantha Burke, a woman from Lucas's past; warily, they team up to beat the killer to his next victim. As they get closer to the truth, Samantha's powers are stretched to the breaking point, and Lucas's success will depend on overcoming the emotional barriers that shut down their relationship in the first place. Ginger Curwen

FROM THE PUBLISHER

"He's no ordinary kidnapper. Not only does he strike again and again, but he collects the ransom, gets away safely, and leaves his helpless hostages dead. Now, after months of eluding the best that law enforcement can put against him, this monster has left nothing in his wake but a cold trail of unconnected victims." "He's no ordinary cop. Lucas Jordan, a key agent and profiler in Noah Bishop's Special Crimes Unit, has an extraordinary skill: he locates missing people. But his uncanny ability comes with a price, and his methods rouse mistrust in the hard-nosed cops forced to call him into their investigations." "Now Jordan has come to Clayton County, North Carolina, where the latest in a string of kidnapping victims has turned up dead. Complicating the situation is the presence - and predictions - of someone who's even more of an outsider than Jordan himself: carnival psychic Samantha Burke, a woman out of his own haunted past. Her warnings meet with skepticism from the local police but spur Jordan on to do what he does best: hunt fear." But the killer he is hunting is hunting Jordan - and he's already several moves ahead in a twisted game whose rules Jordan must learn in order to have a fighting chance. For his psychopathic opponent has extended a very personal challenge - and he's about to threaten the one life the profiler values even more than his own.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

Hooper (Sense of Evil; Touching Evil; etc.) pits a team of psychic special agents against a diabolical serial killer in the first installment of her new Fear trilogy. Kidnapping would-be victims in Golden, N.C., the murderer sets up a torturous ending for them and then dares the lawmen to arrive in time for a last-second rescue. The primary agent assigned to stop the carnage is Lucas Jordan, who leads the investigation with a unique team of clairvoyant agents. He also gets a significant assist from Samantha Burke, a former lover who ends up on the case when she arrives in Golden working as a sideshow psychic for a traveling carnival. The initial chapters are rather boilerplate as Hooper focuses on the team's futile efforts to save local victims, but the action picks up when the murders turn personal and the kidnapper abducts a cop and then drowns her in a glass tank. His next would-be victim is Golden's sheriff. At the novel's climax, Jordan must get past his emotions to access his own psychic talent when the kidnapper turns his gaze on Samantha Burke. Hooper does a nice job of keeping the psychic material credible, and the murderer's constant shifts in methodology provide a welcome series of surprising plot twists. This is a solid entry in the annals of paranormal crime-solving. Agent, Eileen Fallon. (Aug.) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

In Hooper's new series, which stars FBI Agent Noah Bishop, a talented psychic who reports to Bishop becomes the ultimate quarry of a desperate kidnapper. Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

AudioFile

Psychics and psychopaths, skeptics and seers knock heads in Kay Hooper's well-crafted thriller. Noah Bishop's FBI Special Crimes Unit of precognitive profilers must keep a low profile. SCU Agent Lucas Jordan locates missing people by using his extrasensory abilities. A serial kidnapper/murderer is playing a deadly game with Jordan—and winning. Jordan gets some help from carnival fortune-teller "Zarina," who has "seen" the next kidnapping, but the "carny" connection is bad press for Bishop's unit. Narrator Dick Hill slips fluidly between characters, adding minute vocal quirks that immediately identify the speaker. Boston accents, almost imperceptible shifts for higher-pitched women's voices, gruff or gentle baritones, slight nasality, or the occasional stammer define individuals, adding depth and making them credible. The pace is fast, the plot heart-stopping, and the performance first-rate. S.J.H. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2005, Portland, Maine

Kirkus Reviews