Mary Stone (1)

Formulaic mystery thriller, first in a long running series, featuring FBI Agent Winter Black.

Of course Winter Black has a back story and this has formed her adult personality. When she was a teenager, she came home to find her parents murdered and her little brother missing. The perpetrator was still in the house and knocked her out leaving her for dead. After a long coma, she awoke to find that she had some unusual psychic abilities. She will never give up trying to find her brother or to hunt down the serial killer known as The Preacher.

Fast forward and Winter is now a rookie FBI agent and she is assigned to investigate some old bones dug up by a hunter in her hometown. That unmarked body dump is just the first found in this hidden burial ground. She and her partner Noah stumble upon clues that lead to an old cult and a fertility drug that has severe side effects.

My problem with this book started almost immediately with the description of Winter and her beauty, fragility, blah blah. Her powers —OK had I known there was this element I would have definitely passed as I dislike any sort of supernatural elements in my detective fiction. Of course she constantly needed rescuing and protection, she cries a lot, is way overly emotional, and Noah is falling in lust or love. The characters were so stereotypical and it sure took them a long time to figure out the mystery. I will not be reading any further books.

Also, wanted to say that I listened to this on audio so did not make my usual notes. The absolute worst thing, however, was the narrator trying to do voices of other characters. The male voices were horribly done and it was difficult to even tell who was speaking half the time because everyone sounded the same. No effort to differentiate the different characters.… (meer)