Fade to Black

This book contained a great suspense story. The characters are entertaining, the mystery is not easily guessed (actually I didn't see it coming at all), and the romantic side of it was really good. I highly recommend this book.

Dean Taggert is part of the new Black CAT (Cyber Action Team) in the FBI. Dean has seen many things while being in the FBI and before the transfer in to the CAT group. But the video he is watching now tops anything he has ever seen. At first it is thought to be a phony snuff film, but it becomes very evident that it is an actual and grisly murder. Dean and his group also discover that this is not the only one done by the same person and they decide to test out their fledgling wings and grab this case for CAT. Stacey Rhodes has come home and is the current sheriff of her sleepy little town. The high point of her job is usually the patrols as drunks are leaving the bar on the weekend. But she does have one cold case - a missing person matter that is a year old. While Stacey isn't even sure that the town bad girl is even really missing, she does keep updating the missing persons databases. Imagine her surprise when after one normal weekly update, Stacey receives a call from the FBI. Dean knows much more about their serial killer, nicknamed The Reaper, by the time he travels to meet with Stacey. It appears that a cyber club called "Satan's Playground" which caters to every type of deviant behavior is involved. Dean and Stacey meet each other, they are surprised with an attraction to each other. Stacey might be a small town sheriff now but that is not how she began in law enforcement and is quick to pick up on the unsaid facts. Unraveling a deadly chain of clues begins to bring them closer to The Reaper and while this is going on, it seems that Stacey's small town is exploding with crime that has been slowly building. When Stacey and Dean quit denying their building passion for each other, it becomes much more than either expected. Danger is coming closer as The Reaper goes for the ultimate kill. To defeat The Reaper, Stacey will have to accept that it's someone she knows and use her inside knowledge of her citizens to help Dean and his team. One small town sheriff with a past and one FBI agent trying for a new future search for sociopath serial killer in Fade to Black. Stacey needed to escape for a bit and returned home to become the sheriff. Dean transferred into CAT to try and have a better life for his son. Both Stacey and Dean were instantly characters I could believe in from their first meeting to their falling in love and finally to admitting that love. I truly enjoyed the suspense and scattering of clues as the plot unrolled before me. When I learned the identity of the killer, I discovered that I was close but not correct in figuring out the killer. Fade to Black is Ms. Parrish's first romantic suspense and if this is what is to come, I will be in line for her next adventure. Fade to Black is like a wonderful maze with clues, red herrings, great suspense and of course a love story with a happy ending. A book you will want to re-read just to see what clues you missed the first time. Jo Reviewed for Joyfully Revi

I've never been so pleased to have stumbled across an author I'd never read before and given the book a chance based on nothing more than the genre (romantic thrillers/suspense are a favorite of mine) and the reviews. Fade to Black is one of the better ones I've read. I'm very happy I found it! The genre itself presupposes a small amount of formula - there has to be a bad guy (or group of bad guys) that do bad things who need to be stopped from continuing to do those things as soon as possible. Given how many romantic suspense/thrillers I've read, I'm perfectly okay with the formulaic requirement. Often what separates the grain from the chaff in this genre isn't what's happening, it's HOW it happens and WHO it happens to. That's truly what puts Leslie Parrish's Fade to Black a head above others I've read - especially recently. Well-paced, carefully plotted, and not excessively gruesome while still being horrifying, Fade to Black offers up a solid cast of characters that don't FEEL like new characters. In fact, I was truly surprised this is a first book in a loose series, because the secondary characters in particular - the Black Cats - and their history seemed solid and fleshed out, and gave me more of a sense of history between them and in their work than I would expect for a first book. VERY well done, because reading Fade to Black felt like sliding on a pair of really comfy jeans already broken in. And about those characters - THANK YOU, Leslie Parrish for giving your book and your readers a male lead who wasn't an overprotective, chest-thumping troglodyte and a female lead who wasn't a neurotic victim-in-waiting. Maybe I haven't been reading the right books, because lately I've been stuck in books with whiney, self-absorbed female leads who manage glaring moments of stupidity and self-destruction with males falling all over themselves to either save or protect them, no matter HOW much nicer it'd be for the reader if they just got dead. And for the record there is a wide, thick line between "strength" and "bitch," people, and women can have one without being the other. I wish MORE authors would realize that. Parrish does. Fade to Black's Sheriff Stacey Rhodes is an intelligent, competent, professional woman who handles herself and her job with aplomb. She has depth and carries some baggage, but nothing that cripples her...or the reader by being hammered over the head with it over and over and over. Stuff she needs to work through. Special Agent Dean Taggert is a better man than he thinks he is, and is also good at what he does, and his baggage from his recent divorce hasn't turned him against women or made him bitter against women in general. And he loves his son. When these two meet under circumstances I'd image no law enforcement agent would ever want to contemplate, the sparks are instant, but the acting on them completely realistic and refreshingly adult. As their relationship strengthens and deepens, it does so in a healthy, real

FBI Special Agent Dean Taggert leaves the Violent Crimes Unit to join the newly created Cyber Action Team; the mission is to investigate Internet-related murders. Dean has seen a lot of ugliness when he worked VCU, but nothing in his experience has him prepared for the current web case. The Reaper, a psychopath, hosts Satan's Playground, where this maniac murders victims for his members to see live on the Internet. Shockingly Satan's Playground's groupies bid on the method of death that the Reaper employs. Clues send Dean to Hope Valley where he hopes to prevent another on line killing with the help of local Sheriff Stacey Rhodes. The first Black Cats romantic suspense thriller is a terrific tale that uses the two lead characters even their attraction to one another to emphasize the gritty cyberspace serial killer theme; mindful of the movie Untraceable. The story line is fast-paced with Dean as the Black Cat agent working the case; he and Stacey are a formidable pair but their opponent is one hell of a villain and his groupies will remind the audience of the Manson family. Leslie Parrish opens her new saga with a great police procedural. Harriet Klausner

When a book can keep you pretty much glued to the pages even in an uncomfortable ER waiting room chair, at 11 pm on a Friday night, while you're worried about your husband, that's a great sign. Both Taggert and Rhodes are excellent characters, and they have fantastic chemistry. The relationship that develops between them feels natural and delightful. It's easy to root for them, and it's really nice for once not to have two romance characters who are kept apart in the initial stages by personality conflicts; there's plenty going on in their lives without that. The other characters, even though there's quite a large cast, are also wonderfully complex, layered, and interesting. There's more than one viable suspect, and I kept changing my mind as to who the culprit must be! The suspense and thriller aspects kept me glued to the pages. Developments in the case come quickly, and send things in all sorts of new and unexpected directions. The Cyber Action Team has a dynamic going on that makes things interesting: because of their mandate they have quite a bit of fantastic technology and resources at their disposal. But their head is unofficially highly disliked within the Bureau for having ferreted out corrupt agents, including his own mentor, and this often interferes with their ability to get approval for things they want. This is a very dark suspense/thriller: there are reasonably graphic depictions of murder (not salacious, but dark), as well as themes of pedophilia and rape (Satan's Playground is definitely not a nice place). Certainly not for everyone, but if you prefer for your suspense novels not to pull punches, you'll find what you want here. The adult romantic sexual content is moderate, sweet, and nicely done. All in all, this is a very good book and I highly recommend it!