Not Who We Expected
Locard Institute Book 4
Lisa Black
Kensington Pub
Feb 25th, 2025
Not Who We Expected by Lisa Black brings back the characters Dr. Rachel Davies and former FBI Agent Ellie Carr. In the other books, they work together but this book has two storylines: Ellie goes undercover at a ranch in Nevada and Rachel trying to find out information about her late sister. The themes include trust, betrayal, deception, misdirection, greed, and murder.
“Cults on the surface espouse career building and developing networking. But it has a leader who controls people. I read about a lot of cults and realized the leaders have the same characteristics. I try to bring out in the book there is not one kind of person that is part of the cult. The one thing they all have in common is there is some kind of transition in their life whether losing a job, left their relationship, and looking for a new religion. They are looking for something to fill that void.”
Legendary rock star Billy Diamond asks Rachel to find his missing daughter. He knows Rachel because he had a relationship with her sister, Isis. Billy cannot understand how his daughter, a level-headed student at Yale, Devon, went off the grid with absolutely no communication to him. She left six months earlier with her boyfriend, Carlos, for a career development retreat in Nevada.
Ellie goes undercover to join the isolated retreat and find Devon. She quickly understands that the retreat is a cult, and attendees follow every word and order from their leader, Galen who employs questionable methods that may or may not be aimed at brainwashing the participants. Galen, who like many charismatic leaders has no last name, seems determined to isolate his followers from their friends and families, leaving them dependent on him alone.
“Galen the cult leader in the book is sadistic, a control freak, narcissistic, plays mind games, does power plays, calm, and thinks of himself as all powerful. I did not really think of basing him on Charles Manson but did think of Keith Raniere and some of the leaders in Scientology. He controls every aspect of those in the cult of their life. I wanted to show how it is not easy to walk away.”
It is obvious that Black has done a lot of research about cults. Readers learn about the mentality behind cults. The author incorporates it within the plot, enhancing and creating tension within the storyline.
“An important part is to isolate someone. They can do it through bonding while convincing someone that the person in their life is holding them back and causing all the problems. Galen made the inductees overtired, under nourished, and committing slave labor. They are too tired to think and want them too busy to ask questions. I put in the book a quote by the author Lawrence Wright, ‘Why didn’t you do anything? Why didn’t you speak out?’ I wrote in the story how the leaders started to beat people up while the rest of the cult watched and did nothing. Through Ellie’s eyes I wanted to show how she went undercover in this cult and obviously was not in the cult and found that those in the cult were doing things she found unbelievable. In this story she was completely isolated, the goal of any cult.”
The second storyline has Rachel working with Billy to find out about Devon. But she has a second agenda, to find out why Billy seems so familiar with her late sister Isis and what he knows about her escapades.
“Here is also a part of the story that focuses on Rachel and her late sister, Isis. The more Rachel learned, the more disappointed she became with her sister, especially realizing that she was a criminal. I wanted to show how Rachel, the older sister was typical of being more obedient to her parents and not very reckless. Isis and Rachel had sibling rivalry.”
As expected, the writing is excellent, and the fast-paced plot is engaging and increasingly tense with a few surprised twists. The female leads are strong-willed and determined. Unfortunately, this may be the last in the Locard Institute Series because the author has decided to move in another direction. This story seemed to be an introduction to readers because there was not much of forensics. Her next book Run, Hide, and Fight is about an active shooter in an office builder. The whole book is how the main character tries to stay alive as she avoids this madman.
