The hook - #3

Here's my third, and I think final, version of the hook which I intend to submit to Miss Snark's Crap-o-meter at the end of next week. I must extend my deepest gratitude to those at http://crapometer.blogspot.com/ whose invaluable advice has helped me whip this into shape...

::HOOK BEGINS::

When disgraced clinical psychologist Dr Steven Brady takes the only job he can get, tending the chronic patients in a rundown Manchester mental hospital, he finds the path to redemption more dangerous than he ever imagined. Among the residents is Mary Ward, a young woman with a violent past and a talent for knowing things she shouldn't - including the name that stains Brady's conscience. As Mary tells him of the boy who visits her in the night, the boy whose suicide he failed to prevent two years before, Brady slowly accepts what she is: a conduit, a living link between this world and those beyond.

But someone already knows her true nature.

Billy Crawford is a preacher, a messenger of the Lord, a madman with blood on his hands. Why has he befriended Mary's estranged mother? Why has he persuaded her to fight for her daughter's release after all these years? He keeps the secret close to his heart, lest anyone discover the awful thing that cold voice demands of him…

Growing suspicious, Brady moves to protect Mary, his one hope of atonement - but atonement will cost him dear.

A tense paranormal thriller, complete at 90,000 words, CONDUIT explores the boundaries between mind and spirit, madness and faith, the gifted and the cursed. As it reaches its climax, the struggle between Brady and Crawford unleashes the dreadful power within Mary, and no-one is safe - least of all the girl each man sees as his salvation.

::HOOK ENDS::