Blind Spot

FBI Agent Bernadette St. Clair has second sight AND a lover who turns out to be a ghost. As if this weren't enough, she's assigned to catch a serial killer who has left bodies all over St. Paul. Suspense is the key thing here--the killer's identity and motives are no mystery, but how are Bernadette and her partner going to catch this fiend? Coleen Marlo shines at the suspenseful scenes. She supplies action words with energy and tender moments with softness. The final scene with her ghostly lover serves not only as relief from the tense capture, but also shows Bernadette's lighter side. J.B.G. (c) AudioFile 2007, Portland, Maine

January 1, 2007
In this humdrum thriller with ghostly undercurrents, the first of a new series, Persons uses an old plot idea: endowing her female FBI agent with the power to see through the eyes of a serial killer as he goes about his nefarious business. Agent Bernadette Saint Clare has been kicking around field offices all over the United States when she shows up for her new assignment in St. Paul, hoping that her unusual vision and strange ability will be more welcome than they usually are to both her bosses and her fellow agents. She immediately draws a case involving bodies bound with unusual knots and each missing a right hand. A ring found at one of the sites leads her into the eyes of the killer, but his identity and motives remain unclear. Because Bernadette makes wrong choices, she struggles to understand what the reader has long figured out, missing golden opportunities to catch her man and often placing herself in mortal danger. In future installments, Persons would do well to develop her heroine's ordinary crime-busting skills.

Narrator Coleen Marlo captures the enigmatic personality of FBI Agent Bernadette Saint Claire with a subtle but authoritative voice as Saint Claire uses "second sight" to learn about recent murders along the Mississippi River. Marlo matches voice to mood, using hesitancy and understatement to depict her relationship with the agent in charge, Tony Garcia, who cautiously accepts his new alliance with Saint Claire but fears for his career because of her unorthodox skills. Marlo skillfully builds tension as Saint Claire handles victims' personal effects to see each death through the killer's eyes. With a vocal pace that matches the increasing intensity, she also experiences the victims' terror. The narration builds as the chase intensifies. G.D.W. (c) AudioFile 2007, Portland, Maine