Sleeping with Fear (Bishop/Special Crimes Unit Series #9) » (Unabridged)

KAY HOOPER is the award-winning author of Sleeping with Fear, Stealing Shadows, and more than ten other novels of suspense and intrigue along with dozens of other books. She lives in North Carolina.

Riley Crane woke up fully dressed, a gun under her pillow, and covered in blood. Even more frightening, she didn’t remember what happened the night before. In fact, she barely remembered the previous three weeks.

An ex-army officer, now a federal agent assigned to the Special Crimes Unit, Riley was a chameleon - a clairvoyant who could blend in with her surroundings, be anyone or anything she chose to be. The SCU’s expert on the occult, she’d been sent to the beachfront cottage on Opal Island by her enigmatic chief, Noah Bishop, to investigate reports of dangerous occult activity.

But that was three weeks ago. Now she’s awoken to discover that she’s got a sexy new man in her life and an unreliable memory, and that the clairvoyant abilities she’s always depended on to protect her are MIA. Worse yet, with SCU resources stretched thinner than ever before, Riley is alone and without backup, feeling her way through a deadly game of blindman’s buff, where no one around her is quite who or what they seem. And a bizarre murder is only the first jarring reminder of how high the stakes really are.

Bishop wants Riley off the case. So does powerful local D.A. Ash Prescott. Both her old retired army buddy Gordon Skinner and Sheriff Jake Ballard believe she can catch a vicious killer. But one of these four men knows exactly what’s going on in this coastal community, and that’s knowledge Riley desperately needs. For what Riley can’t remember is more than enough to cost her her life. This time evil isn’t just closer than she thinks it’s already there.

Publishers Weekly

Psychic FBI agent Riley Crane wakes up one afternoon covered in blood (not her own), with a pounding headache and no memory of the last three weeks-or her clairvoyant sense. In this third fast-paced installation of Hooper's Fear trilogy (after Chill of Fear), Riley is on assignment on Opal Island off the coast of South Carolina, summoned there by her ex-army friend, Gordon Skinner, to investigate possible occult activity. Despite her haziness on the investigation's details to date-including her apparent romantic involvement with Sheriff Jake Ballard-she persuades her boss, Noah Bishop, chief of the FBI Special Crimes Unit, to let her stay to "stabilize" the situation, which just got bloodier with another brutal murder. Vulnerable and unable to trust herself or those around her, Riley perseveres in an investigation that could prove deadly. Hooper keeps the suspense dialed up as Riley experiences brief flashes of memory, visions of satanic rites and continued blackouts. Regardless of their appetite for the paranormal, readers will be mesmerized by a plot that moves quickly to a chilling conclusion. (July) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.