While struggling to recover from a debilitating gunshot wound, homicide lieutenant Martin Rogers discovers an online "interest" may be a serial killer, responsible for the death of several disabled men. Martin’s interest changes from that of a man for a woman to the interest of a homicide detective for a suspect when Midnight attaches a photo of herself to an email – identical to that of one folded in the pocket of a dead paraplegic. Martin must find this killer before she can add him to her list of victims. Buy your copy! Amazon Amazon.co.uk Froogle Barnes & Noble.com 4RV Publishing LLC Midnight Hours The mystery starts when "Midnight" doesn't reveal much about herself to Martin Rogers, even after months of contact on line. However, knowing the answers aren't a matter of life and death -- at first. Confusion reigns when an Assistant District Attorney is discovered to be the unknowing model for the face in the photo sent to Martin and found in the pocket of a dead paraplegic, killed under suspecious circumstances. Lt. Rogers and friends set up a sting to capture Midnight, but she disappears like wisps of fog. Every lead results in deadends and more confusion. Midnight brings death on the internet. Preying on helpless men, she offers love but gives them a grave. Midnight is collecting bodies and leading Martin and his team in mental circles.   Excerpt The man positioned his power chair at the end of the parallel bars in the therapy room. Over the past months, those bars had become an enemy that could not be conquered,but which created agony and despair. He glared at his enemy as they silently waited to conquer him again. An orderly in white waited beside the left side of the bars. “Ready, Martin?” the therapist asked from where he stood behind the chair. Martin Rogers scowled as he struggled to his feet and pushed against the arms of the chair. By the time he stood gripping each bar, his face dripped with perspiration. He could smell his own sweat and fear. A bolt of pain shot into his back. “Aggghh,” he groaned. His legs trembled with the stress and pain. “I don’t know if I can do this,” he muttered between clenched teeth.

Midnight Hours, reviewed by Brian L. Porter
Police detective Martin Rogers is recovering from a shooting, working hard to regain the use of his legs. To fill in the long hours of inactivity, Rogers spends time in an internet chat room, playing cards with a regular group of surfers. That is until the witching hour, when he and the mysterious woman known only as Midnight connect via cyberspace and disappear into their own virtual world. Martin finds himself becoming more and more intrigued and enamoured by the elusive woman, who seems to find him strangely attractive despite his disability. When Midnight refuses to reveal any personal details about herself, despite Martin being openly honest with her, he begins to suspect that the woman he is falling for may not be all that she seems.

Martin confides his concerns to two of his fellow detectives, and soon he and his colleagues are joined by Assistant District Attorney Lisa Harris as a web of previous suspicious deaths of disabled victims emerges, all of whom appear to have been in contact with the mysterious Midnight.

A task force is set up to investigate the murders, and soon Martin, Lisa, and the team are involved in a case so complex, and so baffling, that they begin to feel as though they are chasing a shadow, a clever and resourceful criminal who they describe as being “like fog that disappears in bright light.”

When police dispatcher Denise Woods is attacked and almost killed by the murderer, the police finally believe they are on the trail of Midnight, only to find yet more clouds of mystery as they attempt to penetrate the veil of the elusive killer.

What links Midnight with the name Norma Fields, and is Norma connected to the oddly named Norm Able? What connection does the reportedly dead sailor J.R Olson have with the case?

Vivian Zabel has crafted a beautifully and hauntingly compelling crime drama that leads the reader down one blind alleyway after another as Martin Rogers attempts to unravel the mystery. The tension is wonderfully wracked up as the storyline builds towards its shattering conclusion. Without doubt, this is one for the crime fiction aficionados, a book that cries out to be read, and one which I found very hard to put down once I’d begun. The characters are believable, the underlying romance that builds between Martin and the beautiful Lisa is tenderly and realistically handled, and the fear that things could go disastrously wrong for the heroes of this tale, right up to the end, is so palpable one can almost reach out and touch it.

A great read, tension personified, wonderfully written!

Brian L Porter
Author, A Study in Red – The Secret Journal of Jack the Ripper, Avenue of the Dead, Purple Death, and the award-winning The Nemesis Cell.


Brief comment by Elizabeth Ann Scarborough
"Midnight Hours is a fast paced tale of serial murders and asks questions about when the victim becomes the predator and vice versa. I gobbled it up in a single afternoon."