A Burning Obsession
A Burning Obsession (Abby Mullen Thrillers #3)
By: Mike Omer
“She was going insane. The only way she could know peace was with Moses behind bars. Abby would chase Moses Wilcox to the ends of the earth to protect her children.”
This has been a good trilogy that I stumbled upon on NetGalley. A Burning Obsession is the final book.
I am a bit disappointed that my prediction on book title was wrong. (You can read my full list in my Damaged Intentions review)
But I suppose this title fits so I won’t hold a grudge.
What’s New?
It has the same suspense, crisis negotiation, and freaky cult stuff as the previous two but this one is a little different.
Abby’s family is fairly absent in this book. I think her son, Ben’s, pet spider gets more page real estate than he does! We also don’t have her work partner, Will, or the other two cult survivors from her childhood. Not having the other survivors feels a bit unsatisfying because I feel like they needed this closure too and they had been talking with Abby about things in the previous two books.
This book is more about wrapping up Abby’s trauma with her past and focusing on the relationship between Abby and Zoe Bentley— a character from a previous trilogy Mike Omer has written— as their spheres intersect and they work the case together.
Another difference with this third book is that we have access to what Moses Wilcox is thinking and feeling. Up until now he’s been pretty elusive and mysterious. But if Abby is going to deal with her past, she is going to have to confront who Moses Wilcox actually is. Zoe is convinced Abby isn’t seeing him accurately.
“‘He’s not a demon,’ Zoe said sharply. ‘Or a cancerous growth. Or a monster. And he’s not a messiah either. He’s a man who happens to be very good at making people do what he wants.’”
Moses is all about control. And Abby is still being controlled by her perception of him. She has to recognize his humanity. He is just a man and he is not invincible. To follow this theme we have to understand more of who Moses is and I believe that’s why Omer decided to give us more access to what drives Moses.
That being said, the last notable difference with this book is that the cult stuff vamps up a bit. In this book we have people being burned alive at the hands of Moses and his cult.
As the book is titled, we figure out Moses’s burning obsession. He is obsessed with fire as a cleansing process but he also has a fetish. He is aroused by fire and is convinced that he must have sex with various members of his group (while the fire is raging and the victims are screaming) in fulfilling ‘God’s will’ of procreating little ‘angels’ to protect their group during the end times.
This sexual fantasy component is new to this book, but comes as no surprise considering the information we have on most cults out there.
The Context and Plot
This one picks up one month after book two— Damaged Intentions— when the hostage situation took place at Abby’s daughter’s school.
Now that Abby knows Moses Wilcox is her father and that he intends to get her and her children back into “his flock” she can’t rest until she has tracked him down and can be sure he can’t come for them anymore.
Following a trail of arson, Abby gets a solid lead on Wilcox’s whereabouts. He is traveling with his followers through a series of connected church locations. As they depart each church, they also leave behind a burning house where they have tied up a victim to meet their fiery fate.
Abby teams up with Zoe Bentley to try to correctly profile Moses and predict where he is going and how to stop him without more people getting hurt.
Can they get to him in time?
Other Comments
In his acknowledgements at the end Omer talks about how he had wanted to write a showdown between Moses and Abby. He wanted to make sure to add the ‘other’ character— the fire. That definitely added to the showdown scene but I felt that I wanted more dialogue about the past. We hear Abby’s thought process as she has some realizations but she doesn’t specifically voice them to Moses. We just watch her ‘negotiate’ her way through the situation. I wanted to see her confront him about some of the cult things.
This was an interesting quote:
“Fear flourished at night. But it didn’t necessarily lie. In Delilah’s own experience, fear mostly told the truth at night, a truth that during the day she could all but ignore.”
In some ways I disagree. When I think about some of the fears I have at night, they can be pretty irrational. But considering the context of her situation, this quote can be accurate. The cult is keeping her isolated and busy and inundated with information so that she doesn’t have time to think things through. As she lays in bed at night it’s quiet and she can process things in a way she can’t during the day. Her real fears tell her the truth that she’s not allowed to think about when she’s surrounded.
And this quote:
“‘She didn’t join this group. People don’t join cults. They’re recruited. And usually they have little control when it happens.’”
This is really insightful. We tend to judge people who ‘join’ cults thinking they’re idiots and why would they choose that, but we don’t recognize the strategies and manipulation that is at play. The more I read about cults and people’s experiences the more this statement resonates with me.
Check out Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism to see how words play a part in that.
And this one:
“What motivated a serial killer to kill repeatedly wasn’t the same as what necessarily motivated a cult leader to kill repeatedly.”
Zoe Bentley’s series is about serial killers. Abby’s series is about cults and negotiating. So what happens when these two worlds collide? Profiles have to be adjusted. The environment and principles of a cult do create a different system than a ‘normal’ serial killer. It’s interesting to think about what creates these two different types of killers. Or is the conception similar even if the outcomes vary?
Abby’s teenage daughter, Sam, gives a speech at her concert and says: “A few of us… pupils and teachers…” and I just wanted to point out that nobody uses the word ‘pupils.’ Nobody. Especially a teenager. The word choice should be students.
I hope no one needs this disclaimer, but I want to confirm that Moses’s interpretation of the Bible is wrong and twisted. It makes me sad and angry that people create these evil cult groups and incorporate the Bible into their wicked ways. They pervert truth and use it to hurt people and that is not God’s will. Moses’s cult is fictional but there is no shortage of real cults that function like that in the world today.
Recommendation
If you’ve already been reading this series, then you’ll definitely want to read this one to finish it up!
If you haven’t started it yet, I think it’s worth checking out! But read it in order or you’ll probably be a little confused and not fully understand everything.
It’s suspenseful and very mild in terms of language and sexual content. I think his writing is good and his stories are interesting.
I haven’t decided if I’ll go back and read Zoe’s series or not. Zoe is quite a different character than Abby and from what I’ve read (which really isn’t much) it may be a bit more intense or violent as it focuses on serial killers who do some strange things.
It seems like Omer’s MO is to create a main protagonist who is still haunted by their past which becomes entangled in their present lives and forces them to confront that part of themselves that hasn’t fully healed or resolved.
If I decide to read it, I’ll link my thoughts here.
But I’m definitely going to keep my eye out for Omer’s next book! Maybe he’ll be starting a new series!
[Content Advisory: 0 f- words, 17 s-words]
**Received an ARC via NetGalley**
This book releases November 8, 2022! You may preorder a copy of this book using my affiliate link below.
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