Hunt the Dawn

The pursuit of a serial killer becomes a twisted, macabre trip in Roads’s gritty, fantastical second Fatal Dreams romantic thriller (after Race the Darkness). Lathan Montgomery is an FBI consultant with a genetic anomaly that burdens him with the power to read people’s emotions through their scent. He’s currently tracking a serial killer nicknamed the Strategist, a quest that has brought him to rural Ohio. Waitress Evanee Brown survived a harsh childhood with her sexually abusive mother and stepfamily. Evanee suffers from nightmares, born of trauma, that turn even more ominous as the ghosts of the Strategist’s victims reach out to her through a parallel universe. Lathan and Evanee, caught up in the serial killer’s orbit, become lovers, with a powerful physical connection that’s tied to a Native American spirit. Roads’s grim novel has ample suffering; it largely succeeds as a fantasy of good versus evil, but its heavy-handed depravity becomes tedious as the story progresses, and readers may look askance at the use of Lathan’s paranormal abilities to balance out his hearing impairment. (Dec.)