Detective Mina Harker has built a reputation as the sharpest mind in the New Orleans Police Department, closing cases no one else can crack.

But the case that’s been haunting her for years is unlike anything else in her files. The victims leave behind no forensic evidence, no witnesses, and not a single drop of blood in their bodies.

When FBI Special Agent Jon Weston enlists Harker to help track a serial killer who’s striking in New Orleans, she knows two things: he’s closer to the truth than he knows—and she can’t let him get too close. Because the truth isn’t just about the killer. It’s about her too.

Five years ago, Harker survived an encounter that should have killed her. What it left behind still torments her, and it’s getting harder to control. And as victims turn up across New Orleans, and a shadowy figure from her past tightens his grip on the city, Mina is running out of time to decide: is she the hunter or the prey?

IN A NUTSHELL
A collection of clichés dressed in borrowed glamour. Almost insultingly derivative. Weak story. Limp ending. Good performers who did their best with a thin script.

I picked this up because Duane Swierczynski co-wrote it, it starred Christina Ricci, was only three hours long and was included in my Audible membership. It turned out that being short and free were the best things about it. 

I’ve been disappointed by Patterson before, most recently by the disappointing ‘Holmes, Margaret and Poe’. He sketches out some glittering ideas but doesn’t put in the work to make them come to life. I decided to try this anyway because I’d enjoyed the bizarre humour of Duane Swierczynski’s ‘California Bear’ and because Christina Ricci knows how to give a strong but ironic performance. Sadly, there was neither humour nor irony in ‘Harker’.

‘Harker’ was the kind of story I can imagine a TV producer using an AI to come up with. It was all glitter and no gold. It dressed a poorly thought-through plot in borrowed glamour, taking character names from ‘Dracula’ but not carrying over any of their attributes, setting the story in New Orleans, presumably to lean into the Ann Rice associations, but neither the story nor the characters had much to do with New Orleans. 

The story was told as an all-cast production, which meant that descriptions were replaced with sound effects and accents, and the dialogue had to carry the burden of both exposition and character development. The sound effects were OK. The accents were generic. The script was thin. Much of the dialogue was melodramatic and clichéd. There was neither tension nor intimacy. The performers did the best they could, but they hadn’t been given much to work with.

The narrative was split between two timelines, perhaps to add tension that wouldn’t have been there in a linear narrative, but it was clumsily done and tended to make the story lose pace rather than gain tension. 

The ending was limp and unsatisfying. No drama, just more dancing around and an ill-defined idea of who Harker was. It finished with a hint that there could be a sequel. If there is, I won’t be listening to it.