Ghosts of Alcatraz by Carol Lynne
Ghosts of Alcatraz by Carol Lynne
My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars
The Blurb…
Love is a powerful force. Unparalleled, unpredictable and often unforeseen. Yet it can surface in the most dangerous of situations. Suffocation, mutilation and dismemberment aren’t the normal outside influences that bring two people together, but inside the newly refurbished Alcatraz Prison, anything can happen.
As inmates begin dying in shocking and sometimes gruesome ways, the deaths prompt Warden Jensen Black to bring in sexy parapsychologist, Brian Phipps. With the help of Brian, Jensen hopes to get to the bottom of what is killing the men he is responsible for. But what he didn’t count on is falling—and falling hard—for the smaller man with the heart of a lion. The question is: will their love survive against the ghosts of Alcatraz?
So what did I think?
It is 2020 and Alcatraz has been rebuilt as a prison to house criminals convicted of cyber crime. The World Police Unit control the prison and Jensen Black is the Warden. A series of murders in the prison are causing grave concern as a number of prisoners die mysterious and gruesome deaths….
The story is a paranormal mystery and the concept is interesting. We are taken into a world where there is a global focus on cyber crime and the prison is constructed of transparent material. The ghosts of prisoners past, are haunting the new prison that has been built on the site of the original prison. They are taking revenge for events in the past.
Dr Brian Phipps, parapsychologist (thank goodness for spell check as I can never spell that correctly!) is brought in to deal with the situation. Ghostly happenings, spiritual possessions, mystery, physical attacks….it is pretty much non-stop action as Brian uses all his knowledge and experience to fight the evil spirits. However, just why he brought along that big trunk with the handy journal of Gramp’s is still a mystery to me.
Luckily, he has to play pretend lover of Jensen, the Warden, to justify his presence on the island and to allow him to stay close to Jensen and under his watchful eye. Not that they stay ‘pretend’ for long!
There is a romance component to this story as Jensen and Brian fall for each other pretty quickly. It is here that the story wavered a bit for me. I just didn’t buy the insta-love between these two men with the associated claims of love, fantasies about futures and sacrifices for each other. Maybe the situation they were in (fighting the evil spirits and fighting for their lives) heightened the feelings but it still wasn’t very believable. That also probably sounds like a strange thing so say, given this was a story about ghosts!
However, in the overall scheme of things, if you park any disbelief about the pace of the relationship – meet, kiss, have sex, fall in love – in a matter of a day or so – then it is an entertaining story. At about 100 pages, it was an pleasant and interesting way to spend an hour or two.
3.5 stars
This book was kindly provided by the publisher in return for an honest review.
To find out more about Carol Lynne and her books visit her website.
Buy Ghosts of Alcatraz from Amazon.