Stephen Woodworth, From Black Rooms

From Black Rooms

Stephen Woodworth

Bantam, November 2006, $6.99, 366 pp.

ISBN 0440242533

In return for owning paintings from the masters, Dr. Bartholomew Wax agrees to use gene manipulation and DNA sequencing to create Violets for the North American Afterlife Communications Corps. Violets are mediums who use a touchstone belonging to a dead person so they can have that soul inhabit the Violet's body. When the consequences of his actions become too much for him, the Oslo scientist kills his subjects and commits suicide. His handler Carl Pancrit frees the Violet Killer Evan Markham who wants Violet Natalie Lindstrom; Carl promises to get her for him if he channels Bartholomew to complete his work.

The NAACC wants Natalie back in their organization, and they want to place her daughter Callie under their protection and at their school where she will get training in how to be a medium. Natalie left because she didn't want her or her daughter under their control, and she is now working a living channeling dead artists who possesses her and paints masterpieces. Ex-Con Colin Criswell has undergone some of the treatments to become a Violet, but he can't keep the dead from knocking at his mind. He goes to Natalie for help, and the two artists are attracted to each other, but the Violet Killer and Pancrit kidnaps them both to use as hostages to force Bartholomew to complete his work; only the dead can free them if they are strong enough.

The latest Violet book is action packed yet characters driven. The heroine is trying her best to make a life for her and her daughter, but their freedom costs them the enmity of the NAACC (they want her and the daughter under their control, as they are both powerful Violets). Surprisingly, it is Carrie who makes a startling decision concerning her own life, that impacts on her mother and their future. This supernatural thriller is a stunning read with a knock-out punch of an ending.