Book Review: Heart of Evil

Heart of Evil
Krewe of Hunters #2
Author: Heather Graham
Pages: 400 pgs
Reading Level: Adult
Release Date: June 28th 2011
Review Source: NetGalley - Harlequin
Available: Amazon / Barnes & Noble / Borders

Summary: (from goodreads) Emerging from the bayou like an apparition, Donegal Plantation is known for its unsurpassed dining, captivating atmosphere, haunting legends…and now a corpse swinging from the marble angel that marks its cemetery’s most majestic vault. A corpse discovered in nearly the same situation as that of Marshall Donegal, the patriarch killed in a skirmish just before the Civil War. Desperate for help traditional criminologists could never provide, plantation heiress Ashley Donegal turns to an elite team of paranormal investigators who blend hard forensics with rare – often inexplicable – intuition. Among them is Jake Mallory, a gifted New Orleans musician with talent that stretches beyond the realm of the physical, and a few dark ghosts of his own. The evil the team unveils has the power to shake the plantation to its very core. Jake and Ashley are forced to risk everything to unravel secrets that will not stay buried – even in death….

Ashley Donegal the heiress of the Donegal Plantation, which was believed to be hunted by the ancestors, finds herself having a recurring dream with the boyfriend, Jake Mallory. She pushed him away being unable to accept that he had the special ability of talking and seeing ghosts. Jake, who is now a special agent for the FBI unit of paranormal investigators, has being having a dream where she is calling him for help. His unit is contacted by Ashley’s grandfather for help, after a disappearance of one of the en-actors of the Civil War battle at the plantation, and then is later found dead simulating the death of the original Marshal Donegal. He is the first to arrive, to find that things go from bad to worse, after more bodies are found. Once the team gets there, Ashley is forced to accept, in order to solve the mystery and find the killer, that she also sees and hears her ancestors, who are trying to help and protect her. To make things right and clear old secrets they will risk their lives to protect the plantation and those around them.

Sad to say, that although the story is very entertaining and easy to read, it lacked oomph on the suspense and in my opinion a bigger involvement of the rest of the crew would have added to the chemistry of the characters and the development of the plot.

This is the 2nd Book of the series Krewe Hunters, but it can be read as a standalone. If you would like to know more of the background on the rest of the group, you should read the 1st, which by the way is very good.