Veena’s review of Hidden Salem (Bishop Special Crimes Unit, Book 19) by Kay Hooper
Suspense Thriller published by Penguin Books 07 Apr 20
In a world where psychic talent is still a relatively rare phenomena, the population of a small town in the Appalachian mountains seems to have a high percentage of it. Readers will plunge into evil and darkness from the get-go, as the agents of the Special Crimes Unit try to use their psychic senses to get beyond the static that is clouding them and covering the town. With watcher crows hovering and seemingly being used as spies, along with the locals, the story reminds me of a Hitchcock movie full of dark suspense.
Nellie Cavendish, unbeknownst to her, is a descendant of one of the founding families of the town of Salem. A letter from her dead father and her dreams are pulling her toward the town in advance of her thirtieth birthday. She is haunted by unspeakable dreams and the crows that seem to crowd around her almost like sentinels. Accompanied by her beloved pit bull Leo, she finally arrives in Salem to soon meet up with Finn Deverell, the man her father asked her to place her trust in, as well as the agents from the FBI.
Geneva Raynor has been in the town undercover for three works and has not only sensed the evil vibe that permeates but also uncovered some mutilated bodies and the disappearance of a young girl. Unfortunately, she and fellow agent Grayson Sheridan seem to be running blind on their psychic senses on this one and will need their considerable skills as FBI agents to stop the evil.
The focus of the story is on the evil and stopping the Cavendish patriarch, who has formed the townspeople into a cult under his control. While there is nothing overt and really no romance at all, there is an implication of possible relationships between Nellie and Finn and Geneva and Grayson. Since many of these characters have been introduced for the first time, I’m guessing potentially some form of romance may evolve in future books if they show up there.
The author deftly brings her story to an exciting conclusion, complete with a psychedelic thunderstorm and the ever-present crows. All in all, not the best in this series, but an enjoyable read if you can get past the darkness.
Grade: B
Summary:
A town shrouded in the occult. An evil that lurks in the dark. The SCU returns in a hair-raising novel ….
Nellie Cavendish has very good reasons to seek out her roots, and not only because she has no memory of her mother and hardly knew the father who left her upbringing to paid caregivers. In the eight years since her twenty-first birthday, very odd things have begun to happen. Crows gather near her wherever she goes, electronics short out when she touches them, and when she’s upset, really upset, it storms. At first, she chalked up the unusual happenings to coincidence, but that explanation doesn’t begin to cover the vivid nightmares that torment her. She can no longer pretend to ignore them. She has to find out the truth. And the only starting point she has is a mysterious letter from her father delivered ten years after his death, insisting she go to a town called Salem and risk her life to stop some unnamed evil. Before her thirtieth birthday.
As a longtime member of the FBI’s Special Crimes Unit, Grayson Sheridan has learned not to be surprised by the unusual and the macabre–but Salem is different. Evidence of Satanic activities and the disappearance of three strangers to the town are what brought Salem to the attention of the SCU, and when Gray arrives to find his undercover partner vanished, he knows that whatever’s hiding in the seemingly peaceful little town is deadly. But what actually hides in the shadows and secrets of Salem is unlike anything the agents have ever encountered.
No excerpt available.
