Rick Mofina The Dying Hour

The Dying Hour

Rick Mofina

Pinnacle, July 2005, $6.99, 352 pp.

ISBN 0786016973

After an argument with her boyfriend, Karen Harding packs her suitcase and heads for her sister's home in Vancouver for some emotional comfort. The weather is bad, forcing Karen to stop at a truck stop for some food and coffee. She notices a reverend who is sitting quietly reading a book and drinking a cup of coffee. When she starts driving again, her car goes a few miles before it sputters to a stop.

The reverend, who is driving an R.V. offers to call the auto club and takes her to shelter in his RV to dry off which she gladly accepts. The next thing she knows she is tied up and the reverend is driving to an unknown location. Jason Wade, an intern working for a Seattle paper, wants to beat out the other five interns for a job as a junior reporter. He sees the Karen Harding story as his ticket into a permanent job and his tenacity bears fruit as he comes face to face with the Evil wearing the face of an ordinary man.

The story is told from the viewpoints of Jason and Karen, one who sees the story as his ticket out of working at the beer company for the rest of his life and the other who witnesses the depravity of a sick mind and the perverted things he does to his victims. Karen's innocent belief in goodness, the product of missionary parents who performed work in Africa, is a stark contrast to her twisted captor. Jason's resolve and unwillingness to give up the story is Karen's only chance for rescue. Rick Mofina is a brilliant thriller writer on a par with Dean Koontz.

Harriet Klausner