This is the 12th book in the Bishop/SCU series and drops the reader right in the middle of the action. SCU Agents Miranda Bishop, Quentin Hayes, Hollis Templeton, Diana Brisco and Reese DeMarco are called in when a tortured body is discovered on a running trail. They were already in the area looking at some other victims of a serial killer.

While investigating they discover still another body. This one is a young woman who was tortured and then hidden quite a ways off the trail. While investigating this second body, a sniper takes aim at them and barely misses Hollis.

More of the SCU and other FBI officers are called in along with local sheriff departments and the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation and the bodies keep piling up. The torturer and the sniper both kill again and again. The SCU team begins to feel that they were lured to this location but they aren't sure why. They know that SCU has a powerful and secret enemy who is finally uncovered in this episode.

What is most intriguing to me in this story is that all of the members of SCU have various psychic abilities and that some of their psychic abilities are growing and changing because of events in a previous book in this long-running series. In fact, the villains in this series are also disciples of a villain dealt with in an earlier book.

This story also has some romance but that certainly isn't the focus of the book. Hollis is developing a relationship with Reese and Quentin and Diana are taking their romance to a new level. The focus seems to be on uncovering this hidden enemy and learning more about their own psychic powers.

I enjoyed this story which had been sitting on my TBR mountain for more than ten years. I know that I read some of the other books in this series before 2008 but certainly didn't remember any details about them. Yet I didn't feel lost or confused while reading this book. I was swept into the action and intrigued by the various psychic powers and relationships among the characters. ( )

At about half way through the book and I am enjoying it. But it seems like every chapter introduces more characters to the story, and it is getting hard to keep track of them all. I know most of them have appeared in previous books, but I read so many books it is hard to keep them all straight.
I have finished the book now. It was a good story with a satisfying ending. Some of the plot twists are a little hard to believe. I am all ready to believe in psychic powers, but that seems to become a convenient excuse for everything that happens. So you want to bring a character back but you killed him in a previous book, no problem. Just bring him back and say it was his "powers." Stuff like that starts to get annoying after awhile. Also, I didn't like the resolution to Ruby's story. ( )

There is no words, just no words. This is my second Kay Hooper book and loved it just as much as I did the last one. It's about a SCU team that is made up of several different people with various different psychic abilities going to a small town that has 2 killers on the loose. So many twist and turns, really good book. The only thing I didn't like was the psychic element it conflicted with my belief in psychics but either then that great book. ( )

It's been too long since the last Kay Hooper I read, and in particular too long since the last one of this series, this is very much not a stand-alone title, this wraps up a few threads and leaves a few dangling threads into the future. Overall I enjoyed it but I felt like I was missing some portions but in the end the story was interesting. ( )

Set in the small town of Serenade, Tennessee, a runner stumbles over the body of a man who has been tortured and murdered. The local sheriff, Des Duncan, who is not equipped to deal with such matters, calls in the FBI. The agents who show up are members of the highly trained Special Crimes Unit, all of whom have one or more psychic abilities. When more dead bodies turn up, the SCU suspects that a serial killer is on the loose.

Even though all the books are technically stand alone books, I strongly advise reading them in order .... you can see relationships develop and the characters interact with each other and understand their powers better and how they change. Kay Hooper is an excellent author. Anything she publishes is a good read but her Noah Bishop series is one of the best. ( )