This is a Bishop/Special Crimes Unit novel. Some being has summoned several psychics, two from the Unit but the rest just untrained citizens, to Prosperity, North Carolina for a fight to balance out the scales of negative and positive energy and dissipate the energy that has escaped into the town and close the portal it has escaped from. Included among this group are: FBI agent Hollis who is a medium, an energy manipulator, sees auras, heals herself and others, and is an empath; FBI agent DeMarco who is a telepath with a double psychic shield that he can extend and protect someone else with; FBI agent Galen who was not summoned but felt that he needed to be there who can be very difficult to kill; Olivia who suffers from headaches and is telekinetic; Logan who is a powerful medium; Reno who is a clairvoyant and seer and she can bring someone into her visions if they touch her while she is having one; Dalton is a powerful telepath who has no shields to protect himself from the outside world and therefore hears everything people think and spends his time being angry which gives any empath around him a headache; Victoria can put people to sleep, but Hollis believes that she has a latent ability that should show itself soon; and Sully who is an empath who can even feel what animals feel and suffers headaches and blackouts.

In Prosperity a man walked down to the basement with the laundry and shot himself in the head with a rifle leaving behind a suicide note that said: "Just me not them". While he was doing that a woman was busy killing and chopping up her husband and three children eating the fingers of one her children then crawling up in a ball and going into a sleep that she can't be awakened from. This is a quiet town where nothing really happens and the Sheriff doesn't know what to make of it. His Chief Deputy, though, does as she is a clairvoyant who knows Bishop and tells him she knows who to call.

Hollis and DeMarco arrive with Galen coming separately doing a ride around the town getting the lay of the land. The first thing they notice is a pressure bearing down on them trying to get in. Hollis can also feel the tension and anger of the town. People are suffering from headaches from the pressure on their minds. Another two murders happen and then Hollis senses that there is someone who is struggling to not give in to the voices in their head to kill someone but she isn't sure who it is or if they will succeed. Later one of the Sheriff's deputies arrives frantically because he almost killed his wife. Victoria puts him to sleep and they lock him up for his safety.

The group decides to go out and search for the portal out in the valley where the murders happened but get distracted by others who are close to killing. Hollis feels that this evil is something familiar. Also, all of their other cases in this area of the southeast can all be linked back to this spot. The idea of this book is a good one and the beginning and middle of it are great. But the ending is a bit of a fizzle and a letdown. It's like she got tired of writing and decided to just quickly end it and stop. I really liked the new characters though and I think this book was really a way to introduce them to the series. This book is still well written and while the ending is questionable is stellar before that so I still give it three and a half out of five stars. ( )

Lots of characters, too many of them new and poorly introduced. Fifty pages from the end, I thought that there must be a sequel planned because the story couldn't possibly be wrapped up in the space left. Then it ended.

Worth reading for a fan of the series, but really not the best. ( )

I have several of Kay Hooper's books, but have never got around to read them. This was my first one. I did not realize that this was a series and I was starting on number 18. (Shocked face!!) I just knew that she had a lot of books and I had never read them.

I naturally assumed she was a mystery/suspense writer. I was correct in that assumption only off by the fact that her characters all had some kind of psychic powers. Some had more than one. I wasn't expecting that, but I can handle that if it's not all out there and decided to forge on and give it a chance.

While definitely hokey, or was it, I did enjoy the read. I loved all the different powers everyone had and spent an enjoyable afternoon sailing through this read. And even though it was number 18, I had to trouble following the story line. The author wrote in such a way, that yes, of course this is a super power and it's real, that just kept me following the action and loving it.

I guess I am going to have to find time to catch up on this series as I rather quite enjoyed it.

Thanks to Berkley Publishing and Net Galley for providing me with a free e-galley in exchange for an honest, unbiased review. ( )