Title:
The Enemy Inside
Author: Vanessa Skye
Publication Date: August 8, 2013
Source: Publisher
Summary: (from Goodreads):
While exploring darkness in others, be careful not to expose your own.
That's
what Chicago detective Alicia Raymond discovers when she's assigned to
investigate the gruesome torture and murder of a middle-aged trucker
with a horrible secret.
Before she can get a lead on one crime,
however, the bodies start piling up and Alicia, better known as Berg,
finds herself the unexpected target of the very same legal system she
has dedicated her life to.
While simultaneously under attack from
a formidable past, an enemy that seems to know too much, and a
conniving killer, Berg is forced to confront her own darkness: her
obsessive need to track down killers at the expense of everything else
in her life; her increasing craving for violence just to feel normal;
and her potentially devastating feelings for her partner, the charming
and handsome Detective Inspector Jay O’Loughlin.
The more Berg
works her original case, the more she learns about the sheer viciousness
of the trucker’s past, and the more she questions if his murderer
should even be punished by a justice system that only seems determined
to free the guilty. When she also finds herself sympathizing with a
sadistic butcher exacting revenge for a decades-old crime, she realizes
the most dangerous secret of all might just be her own state of mind.
While Berg struggles with her morality, a killer is determined to recruit her and use her for a devastating end game.
As
Berg’s carefully constructed life falls apart and she struggles to
maintain a grip on reality, she faces a choice: surrender to the evil
inside or finally acknowledge the brutal past she would rather bury.
The
Enemy Inside is the first in the Edge of Darkness series, which
challenges the concept of justice, asks if vengeance sometimes justifies
murder, and explores whether you can ever heal from a broken past.
I don’t
understand why there aren’t more people raving about this book! I don’t
understand how this book has gotten so little attention! Why isn’t it on more
people’s reading radar?!
Even though I
have a fascination with murder mysteries, I don’t usually read them. Why?
Because authors rarely write them in a way that I find interesting. I like the
detail that goes into the crime scene. I like the blood and gore—although if
you asked anyone if that was true they’d laugh and tell you I’m the first to
cover my eyes and gag if I see too much blood while watching a surgery on Grey’s. Yes, it’s true. I don’t like to
actually see the blood and gore, but
I do like to read about it. If you’re going to give me a murder mystery then I
want exactly like! Don’t skim the details. It’s the reason I’m picking up your
book in the first place.
Vanessa Skye
did a fabulous job in her debut novel. Fab-u-lous. I could not put this one
down. From the second I started reading I was hooked and refused to come up for
air until I had read the very last word in this exciting, captivating novel. I
was kept guessing from one suspect to the next and just one I thought I had it
figured out I was wrong. I love that! I love that I wasn’t able to easily point
the finger at one character so easily and come out right. It means Vanessa did
her job as an author of a mystery so incredibly well! There is just so much
detail and thought put into this book that I cannot for one second believe this
is a debut novel from this woman. I’m blown away by that.
I’m also so
confused on how I feel about Burg. I mean the girl has demons and rightly so.
But she’s also walking a very fine line of being totally fucked up. I couldn’t
help but sympathize with her and hate everything she went through as a child,
but at the same time I’m sitting here reading everything she puts herself
through as an adult and almost be in an erotic awe of her, but at the same time
completely terrified. She’s a walking time bomb you can’t help but feel bad for
and want to help even though you’ll be completely blown away when she finally
explodes. You’ll know what I mean when
you read this book—especially the very last section. No, not IF you read it, WHEN you read it.
Yes, I’m demanding you go and buy this book as soon as it’s available. Really,
you’ll thank me.
I don’t think
I can say much more without actually full on gushing. It really has everything
a fan of a murder mystery could want. The suspense, the detail into everything
that happened, the whodunit air, the brilliant fucking writing! Can you tell
this book is definitely being added to one of my all-time faves?
Well done,
Vanessa Skye!
Connect With Vanessa:
Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Vanessa-Skye-Author/214976041875903
Twitter: @vanessaskye
Where to buy:
The book will be available in paperback and ebook format on the following sites:
Amazon, B&N.com, Kobo, iTunes, and
The Writer's Coffee Shop
Author Bio:
Vanessa Skye has always had a love of words and spent her school years writing poetry, speeches, and fictional essays.
After completing a Bachelor of Arts in Print Journalism and
studying Psychology at Charles Sturt University, Vanessa got a job at
Rural Press—Australia's largest publisher of regional and agricultural
news and information—where she worked as a journalist in the Central
West of NSW for four years.
Thousands of stories later, Vanessa decided to move back to
Sydney and try her hand at public relations while studying a Master of
Arts in Communication.
Skip forward a few years and Vanessa once again found
herself joyfully studying various psychology subjects while managing a
Sydney public relations firm. Enthralled with examining the motivations
behind people’s actions, Vanessa realized what she really wanted to do
in life was combine her love of words with her fascination for human
behavior.
So Vanessa quit public relations to begin the significantly more impoverished life of a professional writer.
Inspired by a recurring dream, Vanessa wrote her crime fiction debut,
The Enemy Inside,
which challenges the concept of justice, asks if the need for vengeance
sometimes justifies murder, and explores whether you can ever heal from
childhood abuse. The second book in this series,
Broken,
will be released in 2014. In her spare time, Vanessa wrote a short
story, The Piece, which was published in February 2012 by Dark Prints
Press as a part of the
One That Got Away dark fiction anthology.
Vanessa now works as a freelance writer, lives in Sydney’s northern
beaches, and tries to immerse herself in salt water at least once a day.
