In this ninth Dr. Alex Delaware series, Detective Milo Sturgis recommends him to a juror, Lucy, who was on the trial of a sadistic serial killer and whom is now experiencing stress and nightmares. In the nightmares, she is four and in the woods near a log cabin and her father, the once famous writer Buck Lowell is there with two men who are carrying a woman and digging a grave for her.
One night, her estranged half brother, Ken, is looking for her junkie brother, Puck, who failed to show up for dinner and finds her with her head in her oven with the gas on and with her nearly dead. After a stay in the hospital, where she insists that she didn't try to kill herself and that someone is after her (she's been receiving hang-ups, her underwear drawer is mixed up, and a nasty note is left on her kitchen table).
In the late sixties, Buck Lowell opened up a retreat for artists called Sanctuary, which is in the woods and contains log cabins. Delaware and Sturgis dig into missing persons cases around that time and come across a young girl, Beth, who fits the description of the young girl Lucy sees in her dreams. Beth, walked out of the diner she worked at and just disappeared. However, one of the other waitresses there, had a side-line of hiring others to work parties for a friend's catering business. So, its possible that Beth was working the night of the party that Lucy sees in her nightmare. Lucy only gets a view of two of the men; her father and a man with a dark drooping mustache.
Someone doesn't want Lucy to remember any more of her nightmare and those left of the Sanctum, which closed down shortly after Beth's disappearance, and try to blame it on the dead. There are two evil forces at work here, which makes this novel, deviously clever and keeps the reader on their toes. Great Book!
Link to Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/gp/search/ref=sr_nr_n_3?fst=as%3Aoff&rh=n%3A283155%2Cn%3A10457%2Ck%3Aself+defense&keywords=self+defense&ie=UTF8&qid=1461173365&rnid=1000
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