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RUNNING CRAZY by D. J. Adams Capital Books, March 2004 352 pages $16.95 ISBN: 1892123991

Lindsay Freeman is a nurse most of the time, which would seem to be an odd and very stressful occupation for a clairvoyant, particularly one who receives her information mostly through the medium of touch.

Mike Hennessey and his sidekick Tony Garrison are trouble on wheels. They have a fondness for picking up (read abducting) high school girls, particularly those with long hair, and taking them out into the woods where they rape and murder them. Then they move on, and do it again. Mike is the brains of the outfit, and seems to have more than his share of good luck. Tony does what Mike tells him to do, has the attention span of a gnat, and lacks the reasoning capabilities of a reasonably manipulative two-year-old. He doesn't hold a grudge, which is a good thing, considering how Mike treats him most of the time.

Rake Wiggins and Scott Brandon are the police officers working on the Rebecca Torman abduction. She was taken at a local shopping mall, pulled into a van and raped as the van was leaving the parking lot. Wiggins and Brandon make the connections between this crime and several other murders involving local girls. But Mike and Tony don't seem to have a discernible pattern, don't leave much in the way of forensic evidence, and get more than their share of lucky breaks. Finally, Wiggins and Brandon consider the idea of using a clairvoyant, and convince their boss Captain Morris that they have nothing to lose.

Lindsay Freeman is instrumental, in both large and small ways, in bringing Mike and Tony to justice. The author seems to be very open in presenting the nebulous nature of some of the information Lindsay receives in her clairvoyant moments. Adams is also up-front about the skeptical nature of the police force, generally and specifically, with reference to clairvoyants in such cases. I got no sense of a political agenda, just the circumstances involved in one particular case. The emotions and reactions of family and friends in the aftermath of these kinds of crimes seemed very real to me.

While I enjoyed RUNNING CRAZY, the pace was a little uneven and the level of tension never rose incredibly high. Despite being billed as a thriller, this just wasn't enough of a roller-coaster ride of a read to merit that description. I would consider it more a fictional presentation of a true-crime story, which is really what it is. If you like Ann Rule, if you like police procedurals, if you can handle a modicum of sexual violence (although not really very much), you will probably enjoy RUNNING CRAZY. DJ Adams has written another book, which sounds very similar in content, entitled SCENTING EVIL.

Reviewed by P. J. Coldren, May 2004

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)

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