4 stars. Another spooky sci-fi from S. A. Barnes. In this one, Psychologist Ophelia Bray joins an exploration crew to an abandoned planet. Her specialty is the study of ERS-some kind of scary mind disorder that you get in space and has famously killed 29 people. While she tries to get close to the crew and win their trust, there is a gruesome murder. Uh-oh, has someone contracted ERS or is it something even worse? The planet and world building is top notch and spooky, creepy, etc. Barnes’ previous book “Dead Silence” scared the bejeebers out of me. This one wasn’t quite as bad, but that’s like comparing King and Koontz-you’re gonna be scared, just in a different way! This book was a tightly written, quick read that moved right along and started out like just another sci fi spooky story…then it sneaked up on me and had me looking over my shoulder. Cold chills, wide awake, reading to the wee hours with the lights on! Very well done. The characters were really good, lots of details and back stories, and the science-y stuff was explained very well and made sense. I was given a copy but would gladly and happily have paid my own cold hard cash for it. S. A.Barnes is on my very short list of authors I would buy rather than wait for the library copy–I hope the librarians forgive me! You ‘OTTER’ be reading this book.