Tony Perona VIPER review

[John Desjarlais]

As he did in BLEEDER, John Desjarlais takes a contemporary mystery and expertly intertwines a supernatural one.  VIPER features Selena De La Cruz—insurance saleswoman, shoe fashionista and former Drug Enforcement agent—who is forced back into police work when a hit list is discovered and her name is on it. The nine people on the list have one thing in common—they all had a run-in with a drug dealer called the Serpent.  As Selena and her colleagues try to track down the dwindling number of people on the list to stop the killings and learn who is behind them, they must deal with a young girl whose visions of a Virgin of Guadalupe-type apparition precede each death.  Are the little girl’s messages of a veiled vengeance real?  Are the apparitions somehow connected to the deaths, or is this event being used by the killer to cover each murder?

 

Desjarlais keeps you guessing as the action accelerates faster than De La Cruz’s souped-up vehicle.  When Selena becomes the last woman standing, she must either figure out who is behind the killings or fall victim to La Serpiente. VIPER strikes fast and sinks its teeth in you. You won’t be able to put it down.

 

Tony Perona, author of Second Advent and Angels Whisper

 

(VIPER, the sequel to BLEEDER, is due out from Sophia Institute Press March 25, 2011)

http://www.johndesjarlais.com