The Shimmer by David Morrell (R)

Dan Page's wife, Tori, has disappeared.   Frantic with worry, he puts out requests to police to locate her knowing that they will do their best as he is a policeman also.  He gets a call the next day from a little town in Texas named Rostov.  The man on the phone says Tori has been found, but when Dan asks if she is all right, he is told he needs to come and see for himself.

When Dan gets there, he finds that Tori seems to be mesmerized and in another world.  She has come to Rostov because of a local feature; mysterious lights that some can see and some cannot.  Tori can see them and is spending most of each night just staring at the lights.  She is joined by many others, who all seem fascinated by what they are seeing; at least at first.  While Dan tries to get Tori to leave, a man seems to have a psychotic break, and starts firing at the crowd.  Multiple individuals are killed and the man gets Dan in his sights.  Coming out of her trance, Tori grabs a sheriff's gun and kills the madman.

Others start to be affected by the lights.  The lights are located outside of a military installation, or as things evolve in the Page's understanding, the installation has been located near the lights.  Personnel at the base start to have the same kind of breakdowns that the man at the observation field did, and more and more people are killed.  In the midst of this, Dan and Tori do their best to determine what is going on, and what part the lights play in the havoc that has come to Rostov.

David Morrell has written twenty-three other novels.  The most famous are probably the Rambo novels that the popular movie series was based on.  In The Shimmer, Morrell has created another suspenseful world that draws the reader to find the answers to the questions he poses.  This book is recommended to thriller readers.