The victims are always the same: beautiful, successful, and blond. Someone was able to coax these intelligent and confident women away from safety. Someone was able to gain their trust long enough to do the unthinkable. Their shocking murders have terrified the inhabitants of a small, peaceful town where such heinous crimes are simply not supposed to happen.
Police Chief Rafe Sullivan knows he has to find answers fast before another woman is lured to her death -- but Sullivan literally doesn't have a clue. And when the FBI sends one of their top profilers to help, he's more than a little surprised that his new partner is nothing like the straight-by-the-book "suit" he expects.
Special Agent Isabel Adams is tough, fearless, determined, and every bit Sullivan's equal. She's also psychic. And blond.
Skeptical of his new partner's ability to get inside the mind of a killer, Sullivan can't deny that Isabel has tuned in to the killer's wavelength, and is following the twisted thoughts of a murderer obsessed with stalking, seduction, and death. But in getting so close, Isabel has set herself up as the next victim. Now, with time running out, she and Rafe will find themselves forced to take the greatest risk of all, because this psychopath is playing for keeps and Isabel is the perfect trophy.
Unable to turn back, Isabel may have already gone too far. Smart, savvy, and confident, she may find that the very qualities that have kept her alive could turn out to be her undoing. For Isabel has entered the world of a cold-blooded monster who kills without mercy and eludes every sense but one... the sense of evil.
Comment: In the past two years I've read two other books by this author, all part of the same series. The stories are focused on a crime investigation and the FBI agents who work the cases usually have some sort of paranormal ability, which helps them profiling and/or catching the killer. The stories seem to be sequential and often secondary characters show up again, as it happened here, one of the FBI agents was a victim in a previous book.
There is a killer in the small town of Hastings and the targets seem to be blond single women. Everyone is wondering who is the next blond victim or how they can be connected to the killer, including the reporters and the police. As it usually happens, the FBI's special crime unit sends a team, including agent in charge Isabel Adams to investigate and as soon as she, also a blond woman, arrives, there is no denying the sparks between her and police chief Rafe Sullivan. As the investigation continues, everyone in the case realizes the paranormal elements in the agents aren't that exclusive after all and perhaps they can catch the killer before he strikes again. The problem is that, unexpectedly, there seem to exist other victims, and some aren't blond.. could it be there's more to this case than what they anticipated?
Written this way, it might seem as if things would be confusing to read out of order, but I think the author does a good job in that regard and whatever references are done are enough to make them understandable. For instance, any references to Hollis made sense because I read the book where she faced a killer, although already more than an year ago, but I have not read the book after and I don't fell lost in this one's plot. The references, it seems, are factual and minimal and don't fully interfere with what is happening. As it happens sometimes, reading in order probably just makes everything more familiar.
The case being investigated was quite suspenseful. I mean, the writing style isn't meant to be one of those super complex plots with twists and red herrings done in ways to delay the solution, but the events described are done in a good enough way to make is seem the plot is advancing and escalating. Of course, certain things have to be taken with a certain suspend of disbelief, especially when we learn the killer's identity and why he has killed all those women. It was both original but a little unlikely to me. I say this, not because it couldn't happen, but because the way things are told makes it feel too unlikely that others would not have noticed clues about the person's identity.
This is definitely a series about crimes and the investigation, but with romantic elements. In this case, the main couple is Isabel and Rafe and we see them having a connection from the moment they meet, but I'll say this is all very much linked to the paranormal abilities Isabel has and how Rafe will perceive them. It is rather obvious they are meant to be a couple and to suit in more ways than only the romantic one, but the truth is nothing happens between them, no ordinary scenes, no day to day task/situation/development would indicate they should be a couple.
This means, to me, that the romance between them is pretty much one of "destiny", and they simply accepted it. We might have the notion they feel attracted to one another but besides that, there's nothing to indicate where they emotions are at, and then there's a scene where they simply infer those feelings and talk about what it can mean for them, for the case, and for what it will mean to Rafe's possible psychic ability he happens to find only now. I was a little taken back, to be honest. Nevertheless, something about how things are written still manages to convey that this situation, as inevitable as it may seem, as pre ordained as one might see it, is still right for them, so...
about crimes and the investigation, but with romantic elements.
ReplyDeleteOoh, I'm going to have to check this author out, this combo is one of my favorites.
This book was published in 2003, and some things seem a little dated, plot wise. But I've read three books int he series by now and the style is consistent for the plot/romance ratio. Out of the 3 books, this is the one I liked more... perhaps you can try one whose premise interests you and that would be a good sample! :)
DeleteI like series where you really can read books out of order and still get the full context of the shared world through characterizations, and at the same time, there's no endless rehashing of every book that came before; it sounds like this book fits that criteria.
ReplyDeleteIt also sounds like there's quite a bit of the "fated mates" trope at play. Given she's with the FBI and so forth, I hope it's implied if not spelled out that it's him who leaves his job so they can be together
I have a feeling there's at least one of the author's books hiding in the pint TBR cordillera; perhaps I should go looking for it.
I think there will always be things we cannot guess unless we do read every book, but in this series I also have the feeling that isn't as necessary, one can go with the flow. That is why I feel that reading Hollis' book might be appealing enough, even though it's 6 books ahead of this one...
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