"Nifty little mystery"

This is in Nighthawk Island series from Rita Herron for Harlequin Intrigue, and it's a nifty little puzzler with riddles inside riddles. Megan Wells is told her husband's body has been found, washed up on the beach. It had been weeks since she reported him missing, and in Megan's heart, she knew her husband was dead long before the police made it official. They were separated, but Megan never quite gave up hope she and her husband would somehow work things out and salvage their two-year-old marriage. Now those hopes are dust in the wind.

Cole Hunter woke up in darkness. It had taken weeks before he could speak again, to walk again. And when he looked into the mirror, he stared at a face that was a stranger. He was told he was Dr. Cole Hunter and he was moving to the area work with Tom Wells on a very hush-hush experimental project concerning hypnosis and mind-altering drugs at a psychiatric institute, sister hospital to the one on Nighthawk Island. He attends the funeral of Tom Wells, a man he is told he never met, but corresponded with through emails.

As Cole stares at Tom's widow, Megan, his mind that is a total blank suddenly sees fragments of memories all about Megan. As Cole remembers things only Tom could possibly know, both Megan and Cole wonder if he might actually be Tom and someone else is buried in Tom's grave.

Megan knows Tom was upsets about something and does not believe his death was a boating accident. As Cole begins to confide in Megan, Megan is torn between feeling something for this man, a stranger, a man who makes her feel like her husband never did, or is it because the face of a stranger hides her husband? As they dig for answers, Megan's life is threatened. Cole learns the real Cole Hunter is dead, his blood type is the same as Tom's, and there is doctor at the clinic who was selling medical secrets to the top bidder - who also died in a boating accident. The police are convinced he is not really dead, along a missing detective Clay Fox. Could he be the missing doctor, Tom, Clay or one of the missing patients that vanish at the clinic?

The book ties up this part of the story rather well, but has an unfinished feel, likely handled in the following books. It's a fast read, with a lightning pace, with Herron tossing in enough red herrings to make a full meal!

Reviewed by DeborahAnne MacGillivray
Posted September 29, 2004

Summary

Cole Hunter had no memory of who he was or where he came from.Why did nothing or no one seem familiar — except Megan Wells? And why did memories of passionate nights in her arms flash through his mind at the sight of her?

Grieving widow Megan Wells didn't believe Cole could be her late husband, yet he seemed to know everything about their life together. Soon she couldn't deny the passion she felt in the stranger's arms...or the safety. Could this mystery man possibly be the man she'd loved and lost — and hoped to love again?