Phantom Dreams
Here’s the set-up:
A scorned serial killer on an old vendetta.
An FBI agent who has been chasing monsters for too long.
A woman whose nightmares start invading her waking life.
FBI Special Agent Jack Matthews finds himself on yet another serial killer case, having barely recovered from the last disastrous hunt. Still stiff from a gun shot wound in his leg, under investigation for a botched job, and having lost his fiancée when she walked out on him, Jack is beginning to wonder if it isn’t time to move on to something new. But, for Jack, these cases are personal and he can’t say no.
Marketing specialist Kathy Gilliam leads a fairly boring life. If she’s not working or caring for her ailing father, then she is doing whatever it takes to avoid going anywhere near crowds of people. Her few distractions include her friend Margo Longfellow, occasional hiking trips, and her increasingly alarming dreams of women dying.
As her nightmares cause her to begin to doubt her sanity, the media releases news of the “Coast-to-Coast Killer” and Kathy discovers her dreams may be related. In a moment of panic, Kathy does something that places her on the FBI’s “persons of interest” list. Suddenly, her life is set on a collision course with Jack who must decide if Kathy is the killer or destined to become a victim.
Editorial Reviews
Smart, suspenseful and disquietingly believable. –– Kirkus Reviews
Kathy’s recurring bad dreams seem to be getting more frequent and more explicit. At the behest of her psychiatrist, she starts sketching the dreams, only to find that her sketches have an uncanny resemblance to victims of the Coast-to-Coast Killer that she later sees on TV. Co-narrator Jack, an FBI agent on the serial killer case but short on suspects, is happy to entertain Kathy’s testimonial after she reports her premonitory abilities to the police. There’s also the perspective of Tom, the elusive, misogynistic serial killer, who seems to suffer from multiple-personality disorder. Redolent of The Eyes of Laura Mars, the taut narrative unfurls an appropriately unsettling though vague sense of Tom’s condition, mixed with a clearer sense of his location. Jack, haggard from his job and disenchanted by FBI bureaucracy, nonetheless radiates charisma and empathy. The details of Kathy’s life unfold with patience: Her dreams merge with reality at a believable pace, then, as expertly plotted by the author, doubt sets in while readers and Jack begin to question the reliability of her perception. By skeptically referencing its supernatural element–“Think we’ve got an actual X-Files case here?” asks Jack’s sidekick–the story adeptly tightens the suspension of disbelief…
From the Author
About the Author
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