Unnatural Instinct

Rating:
Summary: compelling and exciting thriller
Review: FBI Agent and medical examiner Dr. Jessica Coran enjoys some downtime with Richard Sharpe, who resigned his position at Scotland Yard to become an FBI consultant. Their romantic interlude is interrupted when Appellate Judge Maureen DeCampe is abducted from an underground garage in Washington DC Jessica is put in charge of this political hot potato of a case. She immediately concludes that the judge knew her attacker and didn't feel the culprit was a hazard to her.

The judge when confronted by Isaiah Purdy did not feel that he was a threat to her. She knew him from her days as a judge in Texas when she sentences his son to death in the electric chair for a series of rape-murderers. After his son was killed Isaiah claimed the body, drove to Washington DC and abducted the judge. She is now naked tied to Isaiah's son rotting decayed corpse and she will surely die if Jessica and her team fail to find her rather quickly.

There are very few crime writers to day who consistently write compelling and exciting thrillers. Robert W. Walker is not only of those very few, he is elite amongst them. Hopefully he obtains what he deserves having UNNATURAL INSTINCT on all the bestseller lists for its powerful story line with a strong cast. The heroine, a brilliant workaholic, might have finally met her match in Richard Sharpe. They make a good pair personally and professional and it is hoped that there will be more novels starring this couple in the not too distant future.

Harriet Klausner

Rating:
Summary: A judge disappears and the FBI pursues her abductor.
Review: In Robert Walker's latest novel, "Unnatural Instinct," appellate court judge Maureen DeCampe has disappeared from an underground parking garage in Washington, D. C. The FBI fears that someone bent on revenge has abducted her. Dr. Jessie Coran, FBI medical examiner and sleuth extraordinaire, is in charge of the investigation.

Jessie, with the help of her colleagues, including her lover, Richard Sharpe, frantically seeks clues to the identity of Judge DeCampe's abductor. The investigators even enlist the aid of a psychic, Kim Desinor, who senses that the judge has been taken to a place filled with decay. As the investigators race against time, the judge is facing certain death at the hands of her crazed attacker.

Unfortunately, "Unnatural Instinct" does not rise above the pedestrian. The dialogue is stilted and the characters are mostly stereotypes. Although there is a fair amount of suspense as the killer eludes his pursuers time and again, the plot is basically a recycling of many similar novels. The only real distinction of "Unnatural Instinct" is the method that the killer uses to torture his victim. It is a novel idea, as original as it is gruesome, and it is one that I have never encountered before. Overall, however, "Unnatural Instinct" is an average thriller that breaks little new ground.

Rating:
Summary: A judge disappears and the FBI pursues her abductor.
Review: In Robert Walker's latest novel, "Unnatural Instinct," appellate court judge Maureen DeCampe has disappeared from an underground parking garage in Washington, D. C. The FBI fears that someone bent on revenge has abducted her. Dr. Jessie Coran, FBI medical examiner and sleuth extraordinaire, is in charge of the investigation.

Jessie, with the help of her colleagues, including her lover, Richard Sharpe, frantically seeks clues to the identity of Judge DeCampe's abductor. The investigators even enlist the aid of a psychic, Kim Desinor, who senses that the judge has been taken to a place filled with decay. As the investigators race against time, the judge is facing certain death at the hands of her crazed attacker.

Unfortunately, "Unnatural Instinct" does not rise above the pedestrian. The dialogue is stilted and the characters are mostly stereotypes. Although there is a fair amount of suspense as the killer eludes his pursuers time and again, the plot is basically a recycling of many similar novels. The only real distinction of "Unnatural Instinct" is the method that the killer uses to torture his victim. It is a novel idea, as original as it is gruesome, and it is one that I have never encountered before. Overall, however, "Unnatural Instinct" is an average thriller that breaks little new ground.

Rating:
Summary: Unnatural is Unbelievable in the best sense
Review: No one writing forensics novels takes the risks that this writer takes. He's an amazing storyteller in that you feel he does what ever happens in the book as if it were real life. As if he writes not knowing what is going to happen on the next page, and so damn, you don't have a clue either and your predictions for the storyline as you are reading are never exactly on, and if they are, you get a thrill out of it because it is like reading the author's mind. Not an easy task with this man. He is the giant in forensics fiction. He was writing his novels of forensics long before Silence of the Lamb appered or X-Files, and so his books have only gained and ganied in appeal. Each more striking and diffeent from the next, and Unnatural Rules and Rocks. What other author in the history of horrific suspense fiction ever lashed a victim to a dead guy and has given his heroine a time clock of DECAY to save the day? Just an amazing MAX to the limt storyline, and Walker's cameoing Lucas Stonecoat and Meredyth Sanger from his even more amazing Edge series is a stroke of genius. I love Lucas in all his books, and Meredyth is a DIVA. With Final Edge coming out next March, placing the Edge gang into this Instinct title so deftly as he does, well, it just makes Walker a genius. He simply takes you anywhere with such a deft hand and you are given over to his books in rapt attention. Can't say 'nough 'bout Unnatural Instinct. Sends the obsessive compulsives over the Edge with Bible-thumping Isaiah Purdy, the innocuous evil of the man permeating throughout. Wicked, wicked, and more wicked on top of cruel and unusual, thus the title perhaps? Unnatural (Unusual) and just plain weird fun. The most entertaining book I've read since reading Walker's Fire&Flesh under his pen name Evan Kingsbury, a Stoker recommended read.

Rating:
Summary: Unnatural is Unbelievable in the best sense
Review: No one writing forensics novels takes the risks that this writer takes. He's an amazing storyteller in that you feel he does what ever happens in the book as if it were real life. As if he writes not knowing what is going to happen on the next page, and so damn, you don't have a clue either and your predictions for the storyline as you are reading are never exactly on, and if they are, you get a thrill out of it because it is like reading the author's mind. Not an easy task with this man. He is the giant in forensics fiction. He was writing his novels of forensics long before Silence of the Lamb appered or X-Files, and so his books have only gained and ganied in appeal. Each more striking and diffeent from the next, and Unnatural Rules and Rocks. What other author in the history of horrific suspense fiction ever lashed a victim to a dead guy and has given his heroine a time clock of DECAY to save the day? Just an amazing MAX to the limt storyline, and Walker's cameoing Lucas Stonecoat and Meredyth Sanger from his even more amazing Edge series is a stroke of genius. I love Lucas in all his books, and Meredyth is a DIVA. With Final Edge coming out next March, placing the Edge gang into this Instinct title so deftly as he does, well, it just makes Walker a genius. He simply takes you anywhere with such a deft hand and you are given over to his books in rapt attention. Can't say 'nough 'bout Unnatural Instinct. Sends the obsessive compulsives over the Edge with Bible-thumping Isaiah Purdy, the innocuous evil of the man permeating throughout. Wicked, wicked, and more wicked on top of cruel and unusual, thus the title perhaps? Unnatural (Unusual) and just plain weird fun. The most entertaining book I've read since reading Walker's Fire&Flesh under his pen name Evan Kingsbury, a Stoker recommended read.

Rating:
Summary: a decently readable novel, picks up in the end
Review: This was a good, quick read. Not as emotionally gripping as earlier books in this series, but a good quick plot that I enjoyed, and Jessica Coran was vastly more interesting in this book than in the previous two Instinct novels. The last hundred and twenty pages fly by, which was a fairly nice surprise. I think my one real quibble with the book (and something I havent' seen mentioned yet) was the guest-starring of Stonecoat and Sanger from Walker's Edge series. That, and the small subplot with the Indian killings in Sioux Falls that Coran and Stonecoat both became involved in, shouldn't have even been written about and frankly took a bit away from the main story of this book, which would have been fine on its own if lengthened just a bit.

Overall though, it seems like Mr. Walker is returning to the form that he had last in Darkest Instinct and Extreme Instinct. Let's hope the next book in this series continues the trend of good books in this series.

But please, no more cameos from characters in the Edge series, ok?