Another day, another death, might not be unusual in FBI Agent Ellie Conway’s world but a baffling series of naked, bloodless, blondes in pristine showers makes her wonder if she is dealing with a genuine vampire.
Investigating the deaths of these women, Ellie is surprised when clairsentience is added to her remarkable armory of psycho-prophetic talents. Secrets emerge as she races to find a killer with a particular and gruesome agenda. Mounting bodies, escalating pressure, a sinister connection between the art world, the Darknet and the FBI, an impending wedding, peculiar liaisons, and a personal shock challenge Ellie and the Delta A team.
Psychobyte, Cat Connor
Written by New Zealand based author Cat Connor, PSYCHOBYTE is book 8 in the Byte series based around FBI Agent Ellie Conway. Reading this series has always been a mixed experience for this reader - sometimes I find myself really enjoying them, sometimes I'm just not getting it at all.
The whole series is what you'd possibly call "thriller lite" which seems a bit odd because the subject matter is often big picture, threatening stuff. But then there's the whole psycho-prophetic talent thing that is one of Conway's biggest investigation tools, and there's the breezy style of the series. For something set in the FBI I just can't get the dialogue, the attitudes and the character interactions to work as solidly as you might expect. Set them in New Zealand or Australian forces and I'd not have a problem - perhaps I've watched a bit of American TV where everything in the secret services, FBI / CIA is always so tightly American, so in need of some lighting rigs, that I just can't associate the lighter breezy nature with the setting.
Having said that as pure entertainment there are aspects of the "byte" series that work really well - the team interactions, particularly for an Australian, are fun, and the woo woo which is very to the front surprisingly easy to swallow sometimes. The plot in PSYCHOBYTE isn't the strongest in the series however, and you are going to be stretching the disbelief muscle pretty tight in places. It is also probably a series that you have to read from the beginning. Who is who in the character set is a bit of a challenge if you step in part way. Certainly having now been fortunate enough to read a couple of them the feeling of slight confusion isn't as strong as it was in the first book.
Definitely one for fans of a bit of woo woo, romance, and happily cheesy melodrama in an over the top plot.