The Art Of Fear by Pamela Crane

Author : Pamela Crane
Title : The Art Of Fear
Published : 19/09/2017
Publisher : Tabella House
Pages : 304
Genre : Mystery / Thriller

     Ari Wilburn’s life ended long ago—the day she watched her little sister die in a tragic accident and did nothing to stop it. Crippled with self-blame and resented by her parents, she stumbles through life and onto an unexpected clue that casts doubt on whether the death was accidental. Now a psychological wreck, Ari joins a suicide support group where she meets Tina, a sex-enslaved escapee who finds her long-lost father dead. Suicide, police ruled it. But Tina suspects foul play. As a bond develops between the women in their shared loss, they’re dragged into playing a dangerous game with a killer. A serial killer with a deadly message. Faced with a murderous wake-up call and two possibly linked deaths, Ari’s investigation puts her next on the killer’s list. But she’s never been one to back down from a fight. Needing closure, Ari must face her demons and the killer behind them or lose everything she loves.

     This is one of the books that has been sat on my kindle waiting to be read for far too long. They tend to get overshadowed by the massive stack of physical copy books I have and also the fact that I put my Kindle down and then promptly forget where I have left it. So this time I have made the effort to try and read more of the books on it. I decide to go for this as I was looking for something on the dark side. When I read the blurb it seemed to have a lot going on, With so many threads could this author manages to deliver a satisfactory read all the while not making things to overly complicated. 

     Ari is defiantly a broken woman, she is still plagued by the events of the past. Due to her inhabitable to reconcile what took place she has left adrift in her present life. So when she meets Tina, someone she sees as equally broken the form a bond that is hard to break. Both these women come to the start of the story from very dark places. As we learn through the course of the book their parents have damaged them both in different ways. What they have been put through no child should have to faces and it becomes easy to see why they have become who they are. But it is their friendship that allows them to become something more. Tina allows Ari to get the strength she needs to start looking back at what took place without guilt but to question if everything people have told her is in fact true. But this works two-fold and in doing so Ari helps Tina look into the death of her father where two all is not what it seems. They are both well crafted and not only do you feel empathy for them but also a stake in there fight. while they at times dive in over there heads it is difficult to fault the energy and motives that drive each of them. 

     This is a book that comes with its own contradictions, The style comes across as light and quick much like the latest of a best-selling crime series. But it takes the reader to some very dark places. If you were to imagine the very worst things that could happen to a child and the author has put these sins upon her two heroines. At times it feels like a lot for the reader to bear, While much is still left to the readers imagination the author plants the seeds allowing you to fill it in. The flow of the story is one that you need to keep on top of. As we skip between past and present you have to keep various threads in your mind. The story in its self is not overly complicated but you need to bear in mind that we learn of two lives from childhood to the present plus the hunt for a potential serial killer. With so much going on it does allow the author to add plenty of twists and turns along her story. I would say that despite my original reservations through the first few chapters I'm glad I chose to stick with it. This is a story that for me managed to answer enough of the questions it set it's self up with to feel satisfied all the while leaving enough strands to lead into it's follow up books.

     So, in conclusion, this is a dark and twisted story that will take the reader on a journey to some places they may not want to think about. But it also in the telling of her story has givens us two fierce heroines that prove that being broken doesn't mean you can push forward and do whatever it takes to bring evil people of the world to justice. I look forward to seeing how they develop of the course of the next book.