Caterina Shaw is a world famous cellist, but her career has been cut short by a debilitating brain tumor. With the tumor invading her optic nerve causing her to go blind, her options of care become limited. She enters a clinical trial run by Dr. Edward and Dr. Wells. However, when Dr. Wells in found brutally murdered, all signs point to Cat as the murderer and she is missing.

Mick Carrera is hired to track down Cat and bring her back dead or alive to Dr. Edwards. Mick comes from a strong, close Hispanic family. He has military experience and you are not quite sure if he is a lethal hit man, or one with a conscience throughout the book.

Cat is on the run, and she is not in good shape. She has no memory of what has happened to her, and she is weak and disoriented and has a strong urge to find a safe place. Worse, when she stubs her toe running through she notices she bleeds fluorescent green blood and it heals almost immediately. Even more scary and unbelievable, when she stops near a tree, her skin changes color to match the tree exactly. The same happens later when she stops by a cement wall. Thinking she has clearly lost her mind, she goes to the only safe place she can remember, to the Music theater.

Mick has also tracked her to the theater, and it is here he notices first hand of her odd blood camouflaged skin. He sees a woman who is frail and afraid, not a viscous murderer that Dr. Edwards has painted her to be. Mick helps Cat back to his house and with the aid from his physician sister, they start to unravel clues to what experiments were perfomed on Cat, and if she really is the killer she was set-up to be.

Sins of the Flesh starts with a bang with wonderful descriptions of Cat’s skin disorder and her sheer panic and disorientation of her current condition. Using science as the basis for her “supernatural” ability is a fun twist in the book. I think Mick and his sister could have been a bit more shocked at what Cat can do, but I have a hard time accepting reactions to the unexplained in characters.

Mick from the start trusts Cat, maybe a little too quickly in my opinion. She has been experimented on, pumped full of LCD and other unknown drugs. In the first paragraph of the book he is described as “Ruthless. Determined. Skilled in the art of killing.” Except for being determined, I never saw his ruthless or killing side pronounce itself. Yes, he became violent towards the end of the book protecting Cat, but I would have expected him to turn some of this coldness towards Cat at the beginning since he really had no idea what kind of person she is. It was more he takes pity on her, than treat her as a criminal. His character wanted to be cold hearted, but I saw more compassion than anything.

For the first half of the book, Cat is so weak that there really isn’t any place for romance. I found that realistic and satisfying though, much more than if Mick and Cat had shacked up while she was still in a half delirious state. There definitely is romance in this book, but it takes a back seat to the suspense, which I wanted to be cranked up a bit during the middle of the book. The ending has a decent action scene and the very end is creepy, one that promises there is more in store for Mick and Cat.

Rating: Three Stars

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