George D. Shuman - Second Sight

Stunningly beautiful psychic Sherry Moore's world has been draped in darkness for as long as she can remember. Though she has been blind since childhood, her extraordinary gift for seeing the last eighteen seconds of a deceased person's memory has helped solve numerous crimes and save countless lives. Her life has been anything but normal, but because of her relationship with Brian Metcalf, the Navy SEAL she met during a dramatic rescue on Mount McKinley, Sherry has never been happier. Then her exposure to deadly radiation changes everything.

Unnerved about the radiation's possible aftereffects and suffering from optical migraines, Sherry checks herself into the hospital to undergo tests. All seems normal until they wheel in the body of one Thomas Monahan. Vivid, terrifying images from his memory flood her thoughts the moment she grasps his hand. She feels a connection take hold as she thrashes about on the gurney, finally letting out a bloodcurdling scream. When Sherry next opens her eyes, for the first time in thirty-two years, she can see.

They call it a miracle. But for Sherry life with sight proves to be more complicated. She has to navigate the world anew, troubled by the agonizing, unanswered question: Who was this man and how had he enabled her to regain her vision? Enlisting the help of retired Admiral Garland Brigham, her confidant and best friend, Sherry doggedly begins to unravel this complicated history and unearths some startling revelations, beginning with the work of Edward Case.

Case is a man used to getting his way. The CEO of pharmaceutical giant Case & Kimble, he has the nation's elite on speed dial. But unsettling rumors have circulated for years about the genesis of the company's stratospheric success, questioning how this upstart firm has gained prominence and grown to be a monolithic institution worth billions of dollars. How its drugs always seem to make it onto the market before those of its competitors. If the secrets to C&K's dominance are ever made public, they will destroy the empire Case has so carefully constructed. And he will stop at nothing to keep his domain intact.

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The fourth novel in Shuman's Sherry Moore series could have been as exciting as the previous novels if it weren't for once again a very dark topic running the side lines: illegal human experiments on U. S. soldiers during the 1950s.

While helping with an investigation Sherry is exposed to radiation. She gives herself over to her trusted doctor when she experiences a number of side effects. To discover if her sight has been affected she touches the hand of one Thomas Joseph Monahan, whom she later discovers, lived in an Asylum for the Insane for over 50 years. During the process something strange happens and when she opens her eyes she has her eyesight back. Not completely but steadily getting better.

With that she has to discover life anew with images influencing her usual instinctual judgement. Haunted by what she saw in her vision she wants to know who Monahan was, why he was in the Asylum and what happened to him.
Her research brings her and her dearest friend Admiral Garland Brigham to the Asylum which lies next to an old, long abandoned military base.

Unfortunately asking for Monahan's background sets off alarm bells, bringing her into the focus of Edward Case, the ruthless CEO of a pharmaceutical company that always seems to be a step ahead of his competition.

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I didn't like this novel as much as the previous one because its style seems to be almost the same plus it got a bit long winded with Sherry's mental state of her relationship with Brian Metcalf and the new influences with regaining her sight. Might have been intentional that she behaves partly like a teenage girl because of that but I really missed the depth when she f. e. saw for the first time how Brian really looks like. Sherry acted out of character, completely trusting her eyesight and she made stupid choices I couldn't understand.

The suspense unfortunately got deflated way too often by knowing who is who and the reader always knowing more than the protagonist did.

Rating:
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Hardcover: 288 pages
Publisher: Simon & Schuster (August 4, 2009)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1416599797
ISBN-13: 978-1416599791

George D. Shuman - Lost Girls

Sherry Moore becomes embroiled in her most perilous and disturbing case to date and finds that the lives of hundreds of women hang in the balance.

Sherry Moore would do anything for her confidant and best friend, retired Admiral Garland Bringham. So when he suddenly asks her to assist a team of U.S. Navy SEALs in a daring high-altitude rescue on Mount McKinley, she doesn't hesitate and soon finds herself flying across the country to hang vertically off an Alaskan cliff, tethered to Captain Brian Metcalf. Sherry, renowned for her ability to see the last eighteen seconds of a deceased person's memory, takes the hand of a dead climber, hoping to ascertain the whereabouts of his missing climbing team. But what she sees leaves her with visions that will haunt her long past Alaska.

While rumors of slave girls being trafficked around the Caribbean have circulated for years, little credible evidence has been uncovered about these "lost girls." When detective inspector Rolly King George recovers the body of a young blond woman, naked except for a shocking tattoo branded onto her cheek, he knows she may hold the key to toppling this criminal underworld. Through delicate back-channel negotiations, Sherry arrives in Kingston, Jamaica, to see the deceased and finds that things are more complicated than she thought: the remains are of Jill Bishop, an American teenager last seen in a Santo Domingo marketplace.

Carol Bishop, relentless in her pursuit to find out how her daughter died, and Sherry, the distressing images from Mount McKinley still fresh in her memory, embark on a frantic hunt for clues from the Domincan Republic to the remote jungles of Haiti, racing against time to save others from Jill's fate. Along the way, Sherry must confront a legendary voodoo priest, who possesses abilities eerily similar to her own, and take on a man whose depraved practices give new meaning to the word evil.

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While in the Dominican Republic young and rich Jill Bishop is kidnapped, tortured and gang-raped, Sherry Moore is called to help to locate a group of missing climbers that were surprised by a storm.
With her ability to see the last 18 seconds of what a dead person was thinking she touches the body of a dead man who tried to leave coordinates painted on a wall for rescue teams to find his team.
The group is found but Sherry's horror-stricken by what else she saw: broken and tortured women, a one eyed man hovering over them and leaving a tattoo on their face.
More surprisingly she later learns the background of this man who was running away from his father's legacy.

When Jill sees the chance to end her life with a jump out of a flying planes door and into the ocean, she is watched by a senior investigator on holiday who happened to be part of a convention talking about human trafficking issues and exactly the tattoo he finds on Jill's dead body.
Hiding the dead body he makes the right calls to the right man who bring back Sherry to touch Jill's memory.

It is a race against time and law, bringing to strong women together, leading them into a nightmare.

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Lost Girls is the most impressing book I've read this year. I literally couldn't put it down and read it in one sitting. Shuman like in his previous novels doesn't make Sherry the main attraction but the person connecting the dots and people.
Human trafficking has never been such visible and graphic for me. I mean I knew about it but did I really think about it ? I doubt it.
I had the shivers, I got frightened just by suggestions and my own imagination.
It's not easy to digest if you can't let go of what you think about and what your imagination shows you but if you do you are in for ride you won't forget easily.

I haven't forgotten my doubts after I read the first Sherry Moore novel, 18 Seconds, along came Last Breath which was quite good.

But Lost Girls leaves me with three words:
Excellent, frightening and unforgettable.

Rating:
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Hardcover: 256 pages
Publisher: Simon & Schuster (September 16, 2008)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1416553010
ISBN-13: 978-1416553014