Harbinger: Wake-Robin Ridge Book 3 by Marcia Meara
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Harbinger is book#3 in the Wake-Robin Ridge series of paranormal suspense mysteries set in the Carolina Mountains.
The book opens with a scene from June 1994, eight year old Sissy Birdwell steps off the school bus on the last day of term and begins her walk up the long road to home, it’s not a walk she enjoys alone, sometimes things scare her, but she sets bravely off. Along the road she meets Cadey Hagen a boy and mountain neighbour. He is currently suspended from school and is a known trouble maker. He invites Sissy into the woods to show her a secret.
Twenty years later Sheriff Raleigh Wardell asks Mac Cole and his son for help with a cold case. Eleven year old Rabbit is the adopted son of Mac and Sarah, a gifted child who has the sight. Mac also owns a computer research company and Wardell hopes they can help him solve the case of a missing girl.
Several miles away Deacon Cadey Hagen has lived the last twenty years of his life as a reformed man, a husband and model member of society with an uneventful life, except for the recurring nightmare which haunts him. For some reason the dream has become more frequent – Ol’shuck a harbinger of death stalks and chases Cadey through the woods, forcing him to awake screaming.
Mac and Sarah have concerns about allowing Rabbit to be involved in the search for a missing girl, but Rabbit believes finding her can only bring peace to her poor grieving mother. Visions and messages give clues, but Rabbit also needs to protect himself from an overdose of voices all wanting to be heard. He learns to control and grow with his gift in a heart-warming manner.
These books have wonderful settings which come to life in the author’s pen, the slow build up of the suspense is an ideal pace, allowing details to be discovered. I really enjoyed the continuation of Rabbit who we first met in book #2, he really is a delight to read about and I can see that there may be many more tales and cases to solve for Cole & Son in the future.
The wine-red trillium that carpets the forests of the North Carolina Mountains is considered a welcome harbinger of spring—but not all such omens are happy ones. An Appalachian legend claims the Black Dog, or Ol’ Shuck, as he’s often called, is a harbinger of death. If you see him, you or someone you know is going to die.
But what happens when Ol’ Shuck starts coming for you in your dreams? Nightmares of epic proportions haunt the deacon of the Light of Grace Baptist Church, and bring terror into the lives of everyone around him. Even MacKenzie Cole and his adopted son, Rabbit, find themselves pulled into danger.
When Sheriff Raleigh Wardell asks Mac and Rabbit to help him solve a twenty-year-old cold case, Rabbit’s visions of a little girl lost set them on a path that soon collides with that of a desperate man being slowly driven mad by guilt.
As Rabbit’s gift of the Sight grows ever more powerful, his commitment to those who seek justice grows as well, even when their pleas come from beyond the grave.
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Reviewed on Amazon as part of #AugustReviews
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Rosie Amber 