Whispers at Dusk by Heather Graham

When darkness falls, there’s nowhere to hide.

 

Four bodies have been discovered along Europe’s riverbanks, placed with care—and completely drained of blood. Pinpricks on their throats indicate a slender murder weapon, but DNA found in the wounds suggests something far more sinister. Tasked with investigating, the FBI recruits Agents Della Hamilton and Mason Carter to Blackbird, an international offshoot of the Krewe of Hunters. If you want to catch a vampire killer, you need agents who can speak with the dead.

 

The pair travel to Norway, where the shadowy forests of Lillehammer reveal a gruesome scene. The killer is thirsty for more victims, and the bloodless trail soon leads Della and Mason to a group that believes drinking blood is the key to immortality. To catch the culprit of such an intimate crime, the agents will have to get close. Mason’s already lost one partner; he’s not ready to risk Della as bait. But sometimes justice requires a sacrifice…

 Series: Blackbird Trilogy #1 | Publisher:Mira | Genre: Paranormal Mystery Romance | Source: Publisher| Rating: 4.5

The Krewe of Hunters series is one of my favorites so I was thrilled when I heard about the spinoff Blackbird Trilogy that features an international branch of the Krewe.

When Della Hamilton swaps herself for the hostage the Midnight Slasher is holding, FBI Agent, Mason Carter is impressed with her courage and the fact that she too can see ghost. While they might have stopped the latest killer, their job doesn’t stop there. They’ve caught the eye of the founder of the Krewe of Hunters, who’s forming an international team to take down a ‘vampire’ draining victims of their blood and placing them in serene poses. As the new team travels Europe and the UK, Mason and Della can’t deny the attraction between them. With the killer being one-step ahead of the team, they must work hard to discover his identity and his location before he claims another victim.

This was a fantastic way to kick off a new unit of the Krewe and a new trilogy. It’s a little different than the Krewe of Hunters series, not in a bad way, but the foundation is the same.

There’s a lot going on in this one. There are new characters to introduce, new locations, and a lot of traveling. A lot of the plot felt like groundwork, which I didn’t mind. From the start, this was all go, very case/investigation driven.

Mason and Della were great together and I feel as though I got a good sense of them individually. Relationship-wise, a little more development on the page would have been nice. Again, this book was heavy on the investigation side of things, which I didn’t mind as I like to see that side of things.

The case was interesting as was the locations that they trekked to, each providing a bit of local vampire lore. I did have a feeling how things would go but it didn’t draw me out of the book.

One thing that I found odd, not a book thing but a me thing, was that this book relied heavily on lore from Dracula by Bram Stoker but failed to mention Slains Castle in Scotland, which was the inspiration for Castle Dracula.

Overall, this trilogy is off to good start and I’m eager to see how they go about catching the new version of Jack, the Ripper in book two.

 

Blackbird Trilogy

1-Whispers at Dusk

2-Secrets in the Dark

3-Cursed at Dawn