Always Watching by Chevy Stevens

3.0 out of 5 stars "You can sometimes leave the past, but you can never escape.", June 2, 2013

This third novel by Chevy Stevens was the least thrilling of them all. In this book, Dr. Nadine Lavoie, the psychiatrist who treated the women in the previous novels, Still Missing and Never Knowing, is facing her own personal demons.

When called to treat a suicidal patient at St. Adrian's Hospital on Vancouver Island where she has recently taken a position as an adult psychiatrist, Nadine is forced to confront her own memories of living in a cult-like commune with her brother and mother when she was almost 13 years old. As she delves into the woman's history and recent life events, Nadine has flashbacks that lead her thoughts back to the charismatic and dangerous leader of that group, Aaron Quinn, and his brother, Joseph. What happened to Nadine while she resided there so many years ago? At first she is unable to recall details about life at the commune by the Jordan River, but slowly the suppressed memories return and Nadine becomes embroiled in her investigation and attempts to bring Aaron Quinn to justice for what he had done to her and others there.

Nadine has other issues, one being that her daughter, Lisa, is a drug addict living somewhere on the streets of Vancouver. She's a widow as well, and spends many lonely hours looking in dark alleyways and flophouses for a trace of her daughter.

The story line is a bit uneven with memories erupting here and there in the course of the narrative. I never really felt the menace or experienced the suspense or dread one usually feels in a novel that is supposed to be a thriller. Nadine pursues her one track effort to expose the cult and tries to find others who know about what happened there years ago.

This was not a heart pounding, intense read, but more a slowly evolving and predictable reveal of Nadine's experience that occasionally requires quite a suspension of disbelief at the decisions she makes. It is quick and pleasurable entertainment.

The three novels don't need to be read in order though they have one recurring character in Dr. Nadine Lavoie. Still Missing is my favorite of the three. This is a review of an ARC from Amazon Vine.