Title: Don’t Get Close by Matt Miksa
Publisher: Crooked Lane Books
Genre: Contemporary, Domestic Terrorist, Suspense
Length: 347 pages
Book Rating: C+
Complimentary Review Copy Provided by Publisher Through NetGalley
Summary:
An infamous reincarnation cult resurfaces in the wake of a deadly bombing, and it’s up to an FBI novice to learn its true aim—and uncover its dark past before it consumes her.
Special Agent Vera Taggart walked away from a promising career as an artist to join the FBI, and she impresses her new colleagues with her eerie ability to divine conclusions from the grisliest crime scenes. Taggart’s first assignment is a decades-old cold case centered on a cult of suicide bombers known as the Sons of Elijah who believe they’ve been reborn hundreds of times, going back centuries. It seems like a low-risk assignment until a bomb tears apart a crowded Chicago restaurant. The Sons of Elijah have returned—and now it’s up to Taggart to stop their modern-day reign of terror.
Taggart’s investigation begins with Dr. Seth Jacobson, a renowned psychiatrist who claims to help people remember past lives through hypnotherapy. Jacobson had treated two of the Sons of Elijah’s founders before they’d gone on to commit a series of horrific murders. Desperate to understand how these ordinary patients could have taken such a violent path, Taggart agrees to undergo similar treatment with Jacobson.
Through her hypnosis sessions, Taggart comes to suspect the Sons of Elijah are targeting a high-tech government laboratory that could expose the group’s greatest secret with a controversial experiment. To save millions of innocent lives, Tag must come to grips with the shocking truth about the cult and her own puzzling role in its timeless mission. The fate of humanity rests on her ability to determine which threats are real and which exist only in her mind—and to decide whose side she’s really fighting for.
Review:
Don’t Get Close by Matt Miksa is an intriguing mystery.
FBI Agent Vera Taggart has just completed training when she is assigned to the Sons of Elijah case. This doomsday cult has been quiet for decades but Caleb Miller’s domestic terrorist bombing revives interest in the case. Vera has a vested interest in catching Caleb and she is sometimes reckless as she pursues him and questions his psychiatrist Dr. Seth Jacobson. With time slipping away, Vera must figure out what the cult’s next target might be but will she uncover the truth in time?
Vera’s desperation for answers takes her down an unexpected path with Dr. Jacobson. She also learns shocking information about the people who were originally part of Sons of Elijah cult. Vera and the other agents are puzzled by the resurgence of the cult and why it originally went dormant. Unbeknownst to her, Special Agent in Charge Gina Butler has an ulterior motive for recruiting her and a shocking discovery leaves Vera reeling.
Don’t Get Close has a unique premise that is quite interesting. Vera is a well-drawn character that is unusual but appealing. The other characters are well developed and the Chicago setting springs vibrantly to life. The storyline is a bit convoluted and some of the passages slow down the pacing. With unforeseen twist and turns, Matt Miksa brings this suspenseful mystery to a dramatic conclusion.
