Book Review: At Dead of Night

Reviewed By: Pat Reid - RAM

At Dead of Night     Amazon US PB Amazon Canada PB
Linda Amey
Class/Genre:   Mystery   Woman Main Character   Amateur Sleuth   Thriller
Series: Blair Emerson # 2
Iuniverse, 2002, 283 pps.

At Dead of Night takes place in Live Oak, Texas. Blair Emerson has moved back to Live Oak from Austin to manage the Emerson Funeral Home in that location. She has rented a rustic cabin where she is living with her daughter Brandi. Brandi was kidnapped when she was a baby and has been returned to her mother.

Mother and daughter are trying to build a new relationship and make up for all of the years that were lost when Brandi lived with her kidnapper. Brandi is fighting a severe obsessive compulsive disorder and Blair is learning to adapt and even to accept the fact that Brandi fears touching her mother because of her occupation, a funeral director who actually goes out and picks up dead bodies and embalms them.

Live Oak is alive with gossip because of a couple of fires that have proven to be arson. A strange man that has recently moved to Live Oak is an environmentalist and most of the town feels he is the arsonist.

Cindy, an abused wife, who has left home with her children, also touches on the lives of the townspeople.

And to make matters even worse someone has decided that Brandi once again needs to be captured and held for ransom.

This is a real page-turner and as soon as I finished I was ready to begin the next Blair Emerson novel.

Pat Reid - RAM

Reprinted with permission. Do Not repost without permission from the author, Pat Reid - RAM