Customer Reviews

The Night Serpent (Silhouette Nocturne)

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Lily Malkin is often sought out as a cat expert, an ironic twist in her life since she suffered from a phobia of cats for many years. FBI Special Agent Jon T. Patrick wants her help in deciphering the meaning of a recent ritualistic slaughtering of cats. Jon suspects a serial killer in the making but he'll need more than just a theory if he's to catch the perpetrator behind these rapidly escalating mutilations. Lily is the key to the investigation, but will she remember her dreams in time?

I wanted to like THE NIGHT SERPENT. The blurb was intriguing and I really enjoy another series Anna Leonard writes under the name Laura Anne Gilman. Lily's plight regarding cats made for a great plot twist but the execution is a bit lacking. The flashbacks and dream sequences overwhelmed the plot and led more to confusion than anything else.

Perhaps the somewhat perplexing plot would have been more enjoyable if the characters had been better developed. It is hard to care about Lily when it seems only the surface of her character is even remotely scratched. Jon is a much more developed character but even so, he isn't a memorable hero as we just don't learn enough about him. In fact, the villain is maybe the best developed character of them all as we see him through Lily's flashbacks and through the nasty rituals he carries out. Sadly, THE NIGHT SERPENT just doesn't meet the high expectations I had for both the Silhouette Nocturne line or for Anna Leonard.

COURTESY OF CK2S KWIPS AND KRITIQUES

The whole first half of Night Serpent unfolds in a murkily confusing way with flashbacks of past lives, and a mysterious and cryptic phantom cat entity, all mixed in with weird typical suspense novel fodder bits involving the insane killer. It isn't until Catwhispering cat-aphobe Lily, who has disturbing dreams of failure in former lives that she doesn't remember upon waking, finally has a break through and connects with that past, that the story picks up. Lily's love interest FBI profiler Jon is charming and manipulative and a perfectly fine leading man, but the relationship along with everything else in the story was a bit rushed. I was really excited about Night Serpent when I discovered that Anna Leonard is the pseudonym for Laura Anne Gilman, the author of my beloved Retriever series, but even with an action packed climax, the book on the whole ended up being an just okay read.

****synopsis***
As aversion therapy to combat her lifelong terror of cats, Lily's volunteer job at a Cat rescue center makes use of her unusual `animal magnetism' - while Lily fears them, cats have always been drawn to her - and Lily's calming effect on the felines has earned her the nickname of `Cat Whisperer'. When Lily is called upon by local law enforcement to give her take on a crime scene where cats have been ritually sacrificed, she crosses paths with FBI special agent Jon Patrick whose specialty is stopping the perpetrators of animal violence from taking the next step to humans and becoming serial killers. But the killer, the Night Serpent, is not just your every day wacko, the sacrifices have a paranormal tie-in and when cats don't seem to be opening a mysterious otherworldly gate, the killer decides that the Cat Whisperer is the key that needed to open the gate. In order to balance karma from a previous life Lily will allow Jon to use her as bait, but Lily has already lost to the Night Serpent in a past life, will she survive in this one?

The nightmares that have never allowed her to properly sleep have become more frequent and intense lately. Bank teller Lily Malkin has always been disturbed by them, but since she never remembers detail of what frightens her, she does her best to ignore them though lingering odd memories remain of what feels like someone else's ancient life haunt her.

FBI special agent Jon T. Patrick has followed a vicious serial cat killer to town where he meets Lily, a volunteer at a feline shelter. Jon fears his target will soon switch victims to humans; Lily wonders if her nightmares are because she hears the Cat Whisperers' death meows just before the shadowy Night Serpent brutal ritual killing of male cats.

With Egyptian feline mythology serving as an underlying basis, Anna Leonard provides readers with a gripping paranormal suspense thriller. Lily is the key to the tale (no pun intended) as her nightmares are so vivid they seem real; that element adds to the belief that what is happening is genuine. Perhaps as important is the romantic subplot plays a support role to the prime taut horror story line.

Harriet Klausner