Black at Heart

By Leslie Parrish
Signet, $7.99, 345 pages

Lily Fletcher is a bright, young IT Analyst who works for Internet Crime Department of the FBI. Wyatt Blackstone is her older, intense, emotionally-controlled boss. For these two, everything changes in the span of one terrible night. Lily is dead at the hands of the depraved criminal she was trying to arrest, and Wyatt’s reputation and famed icy calm have both taken a beating. Now, seven months later, a series of brutal murders has been committed—each one leaving a very visible trail of evidence that unbelievably points to Lily as the perpetrator. Is she still alive? Is she seeking her own form of twisted vengeance? Or is there someone else trying to get to Wyatt by using the one thing he couldn’t possibly ignore?

Black at Heart is part mystery, part love story, part testament to the ability to face impossible horrors and still come out whole. One of the book’s major twists comes out in the second chapter, a delightful deviation from more conventional plot lines. Parrish manages to capture the reader’s attention without describing detailed gory crime scenes, and although the plot gets a little shaky at the end, the characters are interesting enough that you don’t mind.

Reviewed by Heather Ortiz