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Sports blog: Stamford Sports Scene

By Oline H. Cogdill

Sun Sentinel


"The Messenger" by Jan Burke; Simon & Schuster ($25)


Edgar winner Jan Burke confidently delivers her first supernatural thriller with strong undertones of the mystery genre in the remarkable "The Messenger."

Despite ghosts, people who talk with the dead and a centuries-old hero, Burke avoids cliches to create a plot that always seems realistic with believable characters.

For more than 200 years, Tyler Hawthorne has been "a messenger" with the ability to hear a dying person's last thoughts and communicate this to their loved ones. Tyler's main companion through the years has been Shade, a black lab with unusual talents. Tyler has avoided human relationships knowing that he will always look age 24 while companions would age and die. But Tyler now finds himself falling for a young woman at the same time an old enemy seeks to destroy him.

Burke's strong storytelling makes "The Messenger" anything but predictable. "The Messenger" seems natural even when a Lord Voldemort-esque reanimation begins.

A master of the mystery genre, Burke also shows she has a firm handle on the paranormal with "The Messenger."

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