Dies Irae is book three in B.V. Lawson's Scott Drayco mystery series and I enjoyed every minute of reading it! This whole series has kept me enthralled and I can hardly wait for book four.

Drayco was a concert pianist until his arm was permanently damaged by a criminal. No longer able to maintain the intense practice schedule required for his musical profession, he retired from the stage to become a crime-fighting FBI agent. He has now left the FBI and works as a freelance crime consultant.

In this book, he is contacted by his former FBI partner, "Sarg" Sargosian, and asked to help solve a murder. A co-ed was brutally murdered on his daughter's college campus. Sarg is afraid that his daughter might become a target of the murderer and sets aside his pride to ask for Drayco's help. Drayco has two skills that Sarg is hoping will help to quickly solve this murder: his musical background and his synesthesia. The killer has left a clue hidden in musical code. Can Drayco use his musical skills to unravel the code? Also, the victim is, as is Drayco, a synesthete. In layman's terms, that means that they have a rare neurological condition where stimulating one sense leads to an automatic, involuntary experience in a secondary sense (in Drayco's case, sound creates visual colors). Will that shared experience help him to better understand the victim and solve this crime?

Another murder, another musically coded clue. Is this a ritualistic killer? And what's this with Scott receiving a code of his own? Can he solve the mystery before even more are killed???

I enjoyed this book not only for the interesting story but also because this book gave a lot of information about Scott's past and how he ended up where he is today. It gave me a rich appreciation of who he is.

I definitely recommend this book and happily give it a five star rating. ( )