Trouble starts in small town, Sociable, GA and members of Bishop's SCU team get called in: Hollis & Reese. Also in town is Deacon James, another member of the SCU on vacation visiting scared sister, Melanie. Deacon gets pulled on officially and the three of them work alongside Sheriff Trinity Nichols and her very special (psychic) dog, Braden. They investigate the deaths of members of "The Group" who are adults from the same high school graduating class, which includes Trinity and Melanie. They're being murdered in mysterious, and sometimes brutal ways and with a connection to a serial case that Hollis & Reese were just working, almost 100 miles away. To Hollis, this evil feels strongly negative, powerful and somehow familiar. When they start finding connections to a previously banished evil, the team knows that nothing good can come of it.
I liked that we have another Hollis book, as she and Reese once again work together to solve a crime. I really like the two of them and was hoping they'd get their kind of HEA here...to finish the Hollis character arc maybe. She finally seems to heal in this one...or at least I think so. This was actually pretty vague and short on resolution for me. She faces the evil and is forced to remember her past pain and she builds a shield, and...she's healed? She seems to be relaxed with Reese and letting him hug her up as he accepts her despite her baggage and that's it. I think I wanted a whole lot more from them, especially since we've invested so much time in Hollis. Instead, the end focus is on the dog, who is really quite adorable and fascinating, but not the central focus of this book. Sheriff Trinity was an excellent character and I loved her little psychic twist, but again, she was a strong enough character to perhaps warrant her own book. And Deacon was pretty much worthless in this book (not even a romantic interest so much as a sort of foil for Trinity).
The further into the series I get, the more these books sort of lose their magic. Maybe it's the lack of romance, or maybe it's the constant discussion of energies and evil or maybe it's the wild leaps of logic that these psychics are able to make (outside of their psychic specialties). The suspense also feels like it's missing...when I think back to earlier books, I'm interested but not as hooked as I was. For the most part, the evil here isn't really a mystery (or the villain) if you've been reading all along and paying attention. There doesn't seem to be a sense of urgency or a race against the clock to save the next victim. There were also a lot more loose ends that never got wrapped up...not enough explanation of Braden, why the heck our villain was after revenge, or even Melanie with her past and abilities... This did not feel like the same old Kay Hooper from Stealing Shadows, Out of the Shadows or even Blood Ties. Don't get me wrong, these are still good, solid suspense novels that are way better than a lot of suspense stories I've read. I just think these most recent stories are more 3 star books than the 4 and 5 star books from earlier in the series.