Attorney Mike Sweeney is the cherry on top of Dana
Carrington's successful
business trip to North Carolina. Not only is Mike
attractive, charming, and
driven, he's also from Chicago like Dana. After a chance
encounter, they spend
an evening getting to know each other over dinner, at the
theater, and back in
Dana's hotel room. The night couldn't be more perfect. Until
Mike leans over
and whispers calmly that he's going to kill her.
When Dana wakes up from a drugged sleep hours later she's
bound and
gagged. She has no choice but to listen as Mike explains: in
one year Dana will
die. If she goes to the police it will be much sooner. He
shows her pictures of
two gruesomely murdered women to prove it.
This is a gift, he continues. "You have a full year to do
everything you ever
wanted or imagined" with no responsibilities, no
repercussions. In his mind he
is not Dana's tormentor but her rescuer, saving her from a
mediocre life spent
"merely existing." He says you're welcome with another
syringe full of sedatives.
Dana returns to Chicago badly shaken, and her terror grows
when Sweeney
begins to stalk her, sending flowers to her office and
showing up in the car next
to her. After that last incident causes Dana to get in an
accident, her concerned
friend, Erin, persuades Dana to enlist the help of private
investigator Carter
Mays -- as much on the strength of his impressive gym bod as
his success
busting the real estate-drug ring of the previous book.
Soon after Mays gets involved Sweeney's behavior escalates
into ever scarier,
more violent behavior and the resourceful, ripped detective
must act quickly --
but carefully -- to save his client.
At about 60 pages shorter than its prequel, Alan Cupp's
SCHEDULED TO DIE is
snappier and pleasanter to read. Still, much of the text is
devoted to
unnecessary, awkward exposition.
Cupp could leave a little more action to the imagination and
instead take time
to anchor the story in its characters and setting. Every
once in awhile he shows
his ability in this area, as at the beginning when he sets
the scene of Dana's last
worry-free evening for awhile.
SCHEDULED TO DIE is sort, direct, and evocative.
Still, SCHEDULED TO DIE is a mystery with a moral. It tells
the story about what
happens when good intentions go demented, and explores the
strength (and
relationships) that people can find in the most terrible,
unlikely situations.
Carter Mays' newest client, Dana Carrington, has been given
a year to live. Her prognosis didn't'
come from a medical professional, but rather the handsome,
charming man she met while on a
business trip. After an evening with charismatic stranger,
Mike Sweeney, filled with potential and
intrigue, things quickly deteriorate into the most
frightening and traumatic experience of Dana's
life. Presented as an opportunity to be envied, Sweeney
instructs Dana to spend the next year
living life to the fullest, pursuing every extraordinary
opportunity she every dreamt about.
When
the year is up, Mike intends to reconvene for a romantic
evening that will end with Dana's death.
However, if Dana dares to contact law enforcement, her
impending death will come much quicker and
be far more brutal. Paralyzed by fear of the seemingly ever-
present Sweeney, Dana hires Carter to
protect her and stop her psychopathic suitor.
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