Lisa Jackson and Nancy Bush’s unsettling novel calls to mind both And Then There Were None and Stephen King’s It.
In Wicked Game the bones of a young woman have been found and some old high school friends, certain the bones are those of a girl they knew who vanished years ago, come together to try to solve the mystery. To make things even more stressful, one of the friends might be clairvoyant and the girl’s probable killer may or may not be human. Then people who knew the lost girl start dying, inexplicably, one by one.
Jackson and Bush take their time telling their story—the novel is over 400 pages long—which allows readers to get well- acquainted with the characters. These include the somewhat obsessive sad-sack cop who was on the case long ago, and has been given the now-cold case again, and Becca Sutcliff, who used to have visions as a teenager and now, with the discovery of the remains, is beginning to have them again. The authors know how to keep their readers turning the pages just to find who or what is causing the mayhem. And they provide an ending that’s worth the wait.
