Shannon Drake, Dead by Dusk

Dead by Dusk

Shannon Drake

Zebra, Jan 2005, $6.99, 384 pp.

ISBN: 0821775456

Chicago Park Street Players comedy club owner Grant Peterson and his manager Stephanie Cahill were having quite an affair until the night he screamed out another woman's name while suffering through a nightmare. She never explained to Grant why she dropped their romance and ultimately quit working for him. Her cousin Reggie brought her to Naples, Italy, to run her comedy club there.

Grant is an avid amateur archeologist enjoying the Discovery Channel as a passion. He has come to South Italy on a dig unaware that Stephanie is nearby. As a murder occurs and a member of Stephanie's staff vanishes, she and Grant work together to try to uncover what is going on. Soon their proximity rekindles their passion, but neither knows that evil is in the air and coincidence is not what brought this couple back together.

DEAD BY DUSK is Shannon Drake at her best as she cleverly blends a fine amateur sleuth with a delightful romance inside a fabulous horror venue. The storyline is action-packed and filled with twists that take the reader from a broken Midwest love story to a foreign who-done-it to a second chance at love and to a confrontation with a vampire and devildogs (these are not cake). The lead couple is a delightful pairing and the secondary cast either is old friends bringing alive Italy or malevolence at its evilest. Fans of Ms. Drake will appreciate the cleverly disguising of her subplots so that the audience never knows where she will take them next with this suspense thriller.

Harriet Klausner