Book review: Wait for Dark by Scott Frost

Alex Delillo can’t help thinking and talking like a cop...even when she’s visiting her doctor.

Lt Delillo is a tough-talking and ruthlessly efficient homicide officer with the Pasadena Police Department but she’s also very human.

So when the medics find a lump in her breast, she’s inwardly scared because at 46 years old she has learned that bad things don’t just happen to other people.

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Yes, Scott Frost is back with the latest sizzling chapter in the all-action life of his smart and sassy detective Alex Delillo and she’s on the hunt for one of the most bizarre and dangerous killers in the department’s history.

Frost’s thrillers pack a real punch...not content with page-turning drama and the darkest of dangerous deeds, his stories crackle with psychological tensions and spine-tingling suspense.

It’s 113 degrees in Pasadena, the roads are melting, tempers are boiling over, power blackouts are imminent and Alex barely has time to contemplate the possibility that she has breast cancer.

It’s as if the city is holding its breath to see what will happen when the lights go out.

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About 45 minutes before it goes dark, Alex takes a whispered phone message: ‘Once night falls, I can’t stop him.’

The call has come from the office block across the street where Alex and her sidekick detective (and live-in lover) Dylan Harrison discover a pair of eyes drawn on the wall and a blood-soaked hundred dollar bill.

A series of cryptic clues lead them to a steep ravine on the edge of town and a house of horrors - young accountant Jim O’Brien has been decapitated and his traumatised wife is forced to witness the horrific murder.

The killer’s twin themes are darkness and the all-seeing eye but something is not ringing true for Alex and she’s not sure what it is.

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Meanwhile, a gifted student falls to his death from a local university campus tower block and Alex discovers that his research was linked to an account handled by O’Brien and funded by the sinister Medusa Program.

Goaded by the murderer, who wants her to be part of his lethal game, there is nothing Alex can do except find him.

It’s going to be a long, hot investigation and the results of that all-important biopsy will just have to wait.

Scott’s pulsating story ends on a brilliant cliffhanger which fans will take as welcome reassurance that a new case awaits the team at Pasadena.

(Headline, paperback, £6.99)