Fragments of Fear (Carrie Stuart Parks) – Review + Giveaway

Posted 25 July 2019 by Katie in Christian Fiction, Contemporary, Review, Suspense / 2 Comments

Title: Fragments of Fear
Author: Carrie Stuart Parks
Genre: Suspense
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
Release date: 23 July 2019
Pages: 336

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About the Book

Stolen art. A New Mexico archaeological dig. An abandoned dog. And a secret that’s worth killing for.

Evelyn McTavish’s world came crashing down with the suicide of her fiancé. As she struggles to put her life back together and make a living from her art, she receives a call that her dog is about to be destroyed at the pound. Except she doesn’t own a dog. The shelter is adamant that the microchip embedded in the canine with her name and address makes it hers.

Evelyn recognizes the dog as one owned by archaeologist John Coyote because she was commissioned to draw the two of them. The simple solution is to return the dog to his owner—but she arrives only to discover John’s murdered body.

As Evelyn herself becomes a target, she crosses paths with undercover FBI agent Sawyer Price. The more he gets to know her, the more personally invested he becomes in keeping her safe. Together, they’re desperate to find the links between so many disparate pieces.

And the clock is ticking.

Excerpt

Fake grass covered the pile of raw, tawny-colored earth—earth that would soon cover her fiancè.
She tried to picture his face. Before. The funeral home said his remains were unviewable, but they didn’t realize she’d been the one to find his body. That was the image burned into her brain. He’d told her where to meet him, a parking lot near the Rio Grande River. He was in his car—a rental, it turned out. The shotgun was beside him on the seat.
She snapped the rose’s stem in half.
He would have left a note. If it was suicide, he would have left her a note. If he loved her like he’d promised, he would have found a way to tell her why.
The late afternoon sunlight caught the facets of her engagement ring’s diamond, sending a shimmering light pattern onto the coffin’s dark wood. He’d proposed just a week ago. They planned to have a celebration dinner this very night. He would have formally met her mother—and just as formally asked her mother for her hand in marriage.
She tore her gaze from the yawning grave and glanced at her grandmother’s headstone a short distance away.
Grandma, I wish you were here.
She felt rather than heard someone come up behind her. She stiffened, expecting more bland condolences or maybe even a nudge toward her car.
“I can’t believe it’s true.” A woman’s voice murmured. “I came as fast as I could.”
Tavish nodded. She couldn’t believe it either. She’d walked around for the past week like a cyborg—when she could get out of bed. She hadn’t bothered to contact her accounting company and let them know why she was absent. They called and she’d just let the answering machine pick up. They’d finally stopped calling.
She didn’t care to know why. What difference did that make?
Her life was over.
Taken from Fragments of Fear by Carrie Stuart Parks
Copyright © 2019 by Carrie Stuart Parks
Used by permission of http://www.thomasnelson.com/

Review

Whoa! Carrie Stuart Parks really knows how to come up with some fabulous plots. This one had me spinning from the first chapter, wondering what was going on and who to believe. And there were some great psychological elements to it, although I ended up feeling as though some of those elements weren’t explored as thoroughly as they could have been, particularly in relation to the main character.

What makes Carrie Stuart Parks’ books even better in my opinion is the unexpected shades of humour that add dimension to her scenes—in this case, aided and abetted by a small black Puli called Marley, easily mistaken for an animated black string mop. It’s far too subtle to be considered laugh-out-loud humour, but Tavish’s conversations and interactions with Marley were some of my favourite parts of the book.

It’s worth mentioning that Tavish was very attached to a crystal pendant talisman at the beginning of the story and was only just beginning to consider the Bible and Christianity at the book’s conclusion, so those who are looking for a strong spiritual thread may be disappointed, but that aside, this story had some mind-bending twists and turns that kept me thoroughly intrigued. The only thing that detracted from the story as it developed was the feeling that some of the conclusions Tavish and Sawyer drew stretched credibility. In fact, I found it a stretch to believe that such a trail of clues would have been laid in the first place, particularly with any kind of confidence that the clues would be understood. Some of them were pretty obscure. But if you can suspend your disbelief in that regard, you’ll have a cracker of a read on your hands.

I received a copy of this novel from the publisher. This has not influenced the content of my review, which is my honest and unbiased opinion.

More From Carrie

Using Art to Solve Crime: Techniques Used by Forensic Artists

Since 1981, I’ve been a forensic artist—an amazing feat since I’m only . . .um. . . well, younger than that. In those years, I’ve seen some shifts and trends, but some things have never changed. Despite the overwhelming prevalence of computers in almost every other field, they have never been able to replace a trained forensic artist. Artists have an amazing toolbox of techniques we use to gather the information we need to help solve crime.

The pencil. Any forensic artist worth her weight in graphite knows the power of the lowly pencil and a sketchpad. Law enforcement would love a photographic image of the suspect, but all we have to work with is memory…and memory is faulty. The more the image looks perfect, the more imperfect it is for helping to identify a suspect. We want the drawing to just suggest a likeness and eliminate those not similar.
Now that we brought up the subject of memory, a forensic artist needs to understand how memory works. The average witness will remember between four and five facial features. When they describe the person they saw, they will do so from their strongest memory to their weakest memory, from most important to least important. We listen carefully to the order of facial features.
Whole vs Parts. We don’t look at faces as individual parts, although a particularly outstanding nose or Marty Feldman eyes might catch our attention. We will remember the face as a whole, with the proportions of the face an unacknowledged part of that. Forensic artist prefer to use reference photographs where the whole face is viewed.

Want more? Check out the rest of my article at The Strand Magazine

About the Author

Carrie Stuart Parks is a Christy finalist as well as a Carol Award-winning author. She has won numerous awards for her fine art as well. An internationally known forensic artist, she travels with her husband, Rick, across the US and Canada teaching courses in forensic art to law-enforcement professionals. The author/illustrator of numerous books on drawing and painting, Carrie continues to create dramatic watercolors from her studio in the mountains of Idaho.