Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Deadly Gift by Heather Graham



Contrary to other reviews, I found Deadly Gift, the third installment of Heather Graham’s Flynn Brothers trilogy to be much better than the second, Deadly Harvest. The first, Deadly Night, remains the best of the three. The second and third delved deep into the supernatural but Gift wasn’t as evil and disturbing as Harvest. Perhaps fans of horror will find Harvest more to their liking.

In Deadly Gift, the youngest Flynn brother Zack is called to Ireland to escort a long-time family friend back to the states. Sean O’Riley has been like a father to the Flynn boys so when Sean’s daughter pleads with Zack to fetch him after he falls ill, Zack doesn’t give it a second thought.

Sean planned to spend Christmas in his native country with his new bride, who is the same age as his daughter Kat. But the minute they land in Dublin, he succumbs to a mysterious affliction resembling food poisoning. The doctors cannot find out what happened. Kat charges Zack to bring him back to the states at once. She believes Amanda, her new step-mother, is somehow involved in her father’s sudden illness.

Compounding the situation is the mysterious disappearance of Sean’s business partner Eddie. Both Sean and Zack are eager to return to the U.S. and find out what happened to him. To Zack’s pleasant surprise, Sean’s beautiful nurse Caer Cunningham will accompany her patient back to Rhode Island for the holidays.

Zack is delighted to have her along but senses she’s not all she claims she is. Sean’s aging Aunt Bridey also appears to see more in Caer.

The investigation into Eddie’s disappearance and Sean’s sudden illness is going nowhere until another more blatant attempt is made on Sean’s life and a witness comes forward with a startling revelation.

Zack begins to suspect that these strange events may not have any connection to Sean and Eddie’s business but rather have something to do with a large fortune in buried treasure from the Revolutionary War.

Graham dives deep into Irish supernatural, which has an allure as strong as the Irish culture and lore. I always thought banshees were terrible creature but Graham shows another side of them and their duties on Earth. And I’ll probably never look at a flock of ravens the same way either.

In all three novels, there is a happy ending. The Flynn brother always gets his woman, but in Deadly Gift, the question is ‘what IS his woman?’.

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