"gripping supernatural thriller"

In Taipei, Dirk and Steele Detective Agency psychic agent Dean Campbell does not look forward to the job of stopping a serial killer who murders using fire as his M.O. When Dean suffers a horrible nightmare in which he is on fire, he realizes the adversary is a shape shifter who can become a dragon. He also begins to find a pattern to the madness, which leads to archeologist Dr. Mirabelle Lee.

Dean goes to meet Mirabelle, whom he pledges to protect, but is shocked as he knows her. Two decades ago, they were teens who were attracted to one another, but both thought the other died. Now someone is pulling strings using dark magic to bring them together for what purpose neither knows, but the dragon is obviously part of the machinations.

This Dirk and Steele paranormal romantic mystery, THE RED HEART OF JADE, is a fabulous thriller that readers will devour in one euphoric sitting. The fast-paced story line is loaded with action as the hero realizes his deadly adversary knows him and his skills quite intimately. Dean and Mirabelle are a dynamic duo trying to bring to ground a lethal murdering machine. As with SHADOW TOUCH, Marjorie M. Liu writes a gripping supernatural thriller.

Harriet Klausner

Reviewed by Harriet Klausner
Posted July 1, 2006

Summary

The grisly murders are just the beginning. Dean Campbell, ex-cop and clairvoyant, is sent to investigate. He is with the Dirk & Steele Detective Agency, that global association of more-than-human men and women. Shapeshifters, psychics and other paranormals, Dean and his peers are devoted to protecting life. But there are those who live to destroy.

In Taipei, he finds the remains of burned-alive men and women, bits of bone and ash, that reveal a pattern far more deadly than any he has foreseen. Someone knows Dean's secret. And they know more—of a power that can change the world, and of a woman who can complete him: Mirabelle Lee, the childhood sweetheart he'd once thought dead. Now, all that remains was blinding light and searing pain, potent passion and a purifying fire. And beneath it all is...The Red Heart of Jade.