Book Review: Sacred Evil by Heather Graham

Title: Sacred Evil (Krewe of Hunters #3)
Author: Heather Graham
Publisher: Mira
Release Date: 07/26/2011
ISBN: 0778312429







If you were like me & was disappointed in the previous book in the series, take an easy breath: this book is better. It's not as fun as the first book was, but it's still much more intriguing than Heart of Evil.

A terror born of Jack the Ripper

The details of the crime scene are no coincidence. The body—a promising starlet—has been battered, bloodied and then discarded between two of Manhattan's oldest graveyards.

One look and Detective Jude Crosby recognizes the tableau:

A re–creation of Jack the Ripper's gruesome work. But he also sees something beyond the actions of a mere copycat. Something more dangerous…and unexplainable.

As the city seethes with suspicion, Jude calls on Whitney Tremont, a member of the country's preeminent paranormal investigating team, to put the speculation to rest. Yet when Whitney and Jude delve deeper, what they discover is more shocking than either could have predicted, and twice as sinister…

It's really hard to write a book with Ripper themes to it & not have the book be incredibly interesting. What really intrigued me about the book is how much Graham took from past events. I was surprised to know that there were a series of murders in New York that closely mirrored Jack the Ripper's style & that even today, the murderer was never caught. That played in well with the modern day killings in this book, making the suspense that much more thrilling & fun to read.

The romance in the book is mostly cut & dry, sadly. The chemistry between our two main characters doesn't really come through as well as I'd wanted it to, although I will admit that their later love scenes are pretty sizzling. The mystery does make up for this for most of the book, so I was well willing to overlook this. The only downfall of the mystery is that the conclusion is a little abrupt. The killer's identity was about what I was expecting but it came about so quickly that I couldn't help but feel like I'd missed out on something. I couldn't help but feel that a quick 5 pages or so would have helped ease the transition from chase to resolution a bit better.

This was still very fun to read & it'll make for an excellent beach read when it's released. Despite a few mild disappointments in the last few books, this is a series that I'd still recommend & am still waiting to see how it all pans out in the end.

3 out of 5 stars

(ARC provided by Netgalley)