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FBI agent Bernadette Saint Clare has been transferred to the St Paul branch, a basement office and a relocation that she can't help but see as punishment for letting the FBI know that their special agent was a little too special – she has the ability to see murders from the killer's point of view. Her new boss is dubious but supportive, willing to give her a chance to prove herself, particularly since her arrival coincides with the discovery of a severed hand, followed by the body it was severed from. When more bodies and hands begin to show up, St Clare hopes that she can use her talents to find and stop the murder spree. The plot is the standard hardboiled "new kid in town needs to earn respect." Furthermore, since we know the murder's identity and motive relatively quickly, BLIND SPOT isn't so much a whodunit or a whydunit as a whentheygonnacatchim. However, it's the details that keep BLIND SPOT from being a paint-by-numbers book. St Clare is still struggling to learn her powers and integrate them with her training. (Indeed, she spends a little too much time trying to read clues psychically and not enough trying to read them forensically). Faith is examined from a number of angles, ranging from an agnostic to a devout Catholic to a rogue priest, but although the book has a heavily Catholic tint, this atheist didn't feel preached at. Even the inevitable romance – and I say this from the point of view of someone who is rapidly getting bored of the inevitable romance for every single heroine – is handled with a unique and interesting twist BLIND SPOT is Persons' first book, and therefore has a lot of first-book flaws. The worst one is the simplistic plot and the rapid reveal of the killer. Another is a single line that threw me badly out of the book, when a mourning man compares his wife to a vacuum cleaner. (It was the only really offensively clunky line, but it bothered me). On the whole, though, Persons fleshed those bare bones out fairly well; enough that I enjoyed reading it, and to the point that I'm very curious to see how some of the things she has set up work out in the next book.
Reviewed by Linnea Dodson, February 2007
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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