Bitter Moon by Alexandra Sokoloff Published by Amazon Publishing on November 1st 2016
Genres: Fiction, Mystery & Detective, General, Thrillers, Suspense, Contemporary Women
Pages: 452
ISBN: 9781503940369
Goodreads
FBI agent Matthew Roarke has been on leave, and in seclusion, since the capture of mass killer Cara Lindstrom--the victim turned avenger who preys on predators. Torn between devotion to the law and a powerful attraction to Cara and her lethal brand of justice, Roarke has retreated from both to search his soul. But Cara's escape from custody and a police detective's cryptic challenge soon draw him out of exile--into the California desert and deep into Cara's past--to probe an unsolved murder that could be the key to her long and deadly career.
Following young Cara's trail, Roarke uncovers a horrifying attack on a schoolgirl, the shocking suicide of another, and a human monster stalking Cara's old high school. Separated by sixteen years, crossing paths in the present and past, Roarke and fourteen-year-old Cara must race to find and stop the sadistic sexual predator before more young women are brutalized.
I have been blown away by Cold Moon by Alexander Sokoloff, and her character Cara Lindstrom the female antagonist of The Huntress/FBI book series. As I ponder both the book and the series I kept wondering what my favorite detective Eve Dallas would think of Cara. You see Cara and Eve have similar abusive pasts. Eve was a victim of sexual abusive/rape by her father whom Eve kills at the age of seven. Cara is the victim of a serial killer that killed her entire family and left her for dead. Both these little girls end up in foster care, and don’t have any warm cuddle feelings about growing up in the system. Cara at eighteen leaves the system a few years later. comes into insurance monies totally millions and disappears from society and her extended family. Eve, leaves the foster care system at eighteen, and decides to be a cop. For Eve being a cop isn’t just job it is who she is, and is her complete identity; when Eve is first introduced in the In Death series. Eve stands for the victims of homicide, she stands for justice. Cara stands for justice too, but she is the sword of justice cutting down the evil that lurks in men’s hearts. To Cara evil is not a social construct to explain man’s inhumanity, but a living breathing thing, ‘It’. It can never be killed as it is like a
virus infecting one subseptable carrier to the next. ‘It’ is the monster that hides inside the shell of humanity. In Cara’s world the male protagonist is FBI special agent Matthew Roarke, he is a former BAU profiler and has had numerous brushes with evil as a special agent. The dynamic between the two has Cara who any sane person would think was crazy, actually influencing Matthew’s rock solid perception of evil. The story that surrounds these two is both a psychological and philosophical conundrum as Cara who in her own right is a killer, only kills men who pay on woman and children. Her victims are sexual predators. Lieutenant Eve Dallas stands for the victim. It doesn’t matter if Eve likes or dislikes the victim she answers to justice, it is her entire identity. What would Eve think of Cara, a woman who has a very similar background but their path to justice could not be different. Eve who also has a man named Roarke in her life helping to find justice for the victims. In the Huntress series the mindset of Cara has been explained that her mental development was marked starkly by her near death, that because of her age at the time she still has a child magic thinking about evil. Turning it into a real entity not tied to the man that slaughtered her parents and siblings. Some readers might see parallels between Cara and Dexter Morgan of the Dexter books. But Cara was only scratched by evil and therefore able to recognize it hiding in others. Eve has encountered evil and it too has been portrayed as an entity, but not to the extend of Cara’s rational. Eve pursues evil via those who murder. Eve stands for the victims, bringing their killers to the lands justice. Cara pursues evil and kills those who are evil. Cara is the justice, as she only kills evil doers. So how would they relate. Cara would not give Eve another throughly outside of being her hunter. Cara is laser focused in dispatching her brand of justice. She is lead to ‘it’ the evil that inhabits humans. Eve on the other hand might understand Cara even sympathize with her, but Eve would still bring her in to face justice. Okay she may give Cara a head start, as even Cara’s protagonist Roarke is torn by the crimes Cara commits. When others get away with murder, rape and torture, should they not get a reckoning.
I wrote the above prior to reading book four of the series Bitter Moon, which has alternating point of view of past Cara and present Roarke. The tale of Cara’s spin into either madness or complete clarity is riveting and spellbinding. What if a person could actually see evil, what would their moralistic obligation be to stop that evil and save future victims and find justice for those survivors
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