Hello Again – a Book Review

Title: Hello Again (Dr. Evelyn Talbot Novels)

Genre: Currently #639 on Amazon Best Sellers Rank for Books, Mystery, Thriller & Suspense, Mystery, Women Sleuths

Publisher: St. Martin’s Paperbacks

Publication Date: To be released October 3, 2017

Source: St Martin’s Paperbacks and NetGalley

Title and Cover: Hello Again – Nice cover, not sure it conveys the location or the genre

Apparently there is nowhere you can hide if someone really wants to find you. This book is textbook serial killer, psychological profiling at it’s best.

Dr. Evelyn Talbot has moved to administrate a maximum security prison in Alaska where she helped to complete Hanover House, which is to house and study serial killers. Her newest patient, Dr. Lyman Bishop, is a brilliant cancer researcher and extremely manipulative. He is also known as “the Zombie Maker” and insists he was wrongly convicted. His purported specialty is ice-pick lobotomies on his victims and to look or speak with him, one would never suspect he could be that vicious.

Our protagonist, however, has a vested interest in the capture and study of serial killers having been a victim herself of her high school boyfriend’s heinous and torturous attack in which he’d killed three of her friends and left her for dead as well. After more than 20 years, she is still haunted by the experience and having been attacked again eighteen months previous, too fresh to let her relax. It would seem she’d never be free of the legacy that Jasper Moore has bestowed upon her, as he’s never been caught.

When she arrived in the tiny hamlet of Hilltop where Hanover House is located, she was introduced to the local state trooper known as Amarok. Amarok is younger by a number of years, but there is a cautious attraction and this episode finds them living together. He is aware of her history and she cannot deny he is a nurturing, protective, and kind male force in her life.

This is a psychiatrist with a debilitating history who has apparently overcome all the odds not only to live through the experience, but to go on with her life, thrive, and actually make a name for herself in the field, which may be a problem. She is just beginning to explore a loving relationship with Amarok and is wrestling with the issues of her awakening sexuality.

Jasper appears to be active again and she learns that another classmate has been murdered. Jasper has discovered her whereabouts and is formulating a revenge plan.  The race is on for finding Jasper and containing Bishop. She has struggled with the issue of whether or not Bishop is culpable in the ice-pick atrocities and having spoken to his dependent sister decides she must, at all cost, keep him where he truly belongs.

I enjoyed the intelligent dialogue and the witness of some artful dodging in Dr. Talbot’s handling of the various peripheral support characters. She definitely uses psychology on some of the relationships and does some serious manipulating of her own. Amarok is well fleshed out and very appealing.

The antagonists, both Lyman Bishop and Jasper, are scary psychotic and make for a fine Halloween read, as long as lights are on and there are no howling winds, freezing temps, or pitch black skies outside. The POV tends to shift to Jasper as he proceeds with the implementation of his plan.

This is the third in the series, counting the novella that kicked it off, and the characters have obviously grown. While this could be considered a stand alone book, it’s obvious that the reader is missing out on some of the finer introductory points, although there was sufficient back story with Jasper that the reader would have no problem following the plot line that moves to a brutal and unexpected climax. Well, maybe expected, but then a matter of seeing how the author was going to handle it.

I had a difficult time relating to Evelyn Talbot: on the one hand deftly handling persons and situations and on the other, obsessive to the point of annoying. Alaskan weather sounds as unattractive as I’d expect in winter, and small town entertainment and interaction in a remote location seemed dead on.

I downloaded this digital book from St. Martin’s Press through NetGalley and I sincerely enjoyed the opportunity to read and review. Recommended for all who enjoy a psychological thriller, mystery and suspense novel with a touch of romance.

Rosepoint Publishing: Four of Five Stars

The Author: (from Amazon Author Page) “It was a shocking experience that jump-started Brenda Novak’s career as a bestselling author–she caught her day-care provider drugging her children with cough syrup to get them to sleep all day. That was when Brenda decided she needed to quit her job as a loan officer and help make a living from home. “When I first got the idea to become a novelist, it took me five years to teach myself the craft and finish my first book,” Brenda says. But she sold that book, and the rest is history. Her novels have made the New York Times and USA Today bestseller lists and won many awards, including five Rita nominations, the Book Buyer’s Best, the Book Seller’s Best and the National Reader’s Choice Award. “Brenda and her husband, Ted, live in Sacramento and are proud parents of five children–three girls and two boys. When she’s not spending time with her family or writing, Brenda is usually raising funds for diabetes research (her youngest son has this disease). So far, Brenda has raised $2.5 million. Please visit http://www.brendanovakforthecure.org to see how you can help.” Follow Brenda on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Author-… 

©2017 Virginia Williams