This grizzly detective mystery about a psychopath murderer on a power trip who likes gambling for the lives of underage prostitutes is bizarrely classified as a romance book. There is indeed a romance, between Riley Tatum, a Virginia state trooper and Clay Bowman, who works for a local security agency. They had hot passionate sex 5 years previously, but then Clay, who had recently lost his wife, didn’t pursue the relationship, and Riley was crushed. Now they are working together again on cases of girls who turn up dead not long after disappearing, and the seething passion between them cannot be contained. They are a good match: both smart, fit, and damaged. But will Clay be able to keep Riley safe? Take a wild guess.

There are some graphic descriptions of killings of young women, while the descriptions of the deaths of men are far less detailed. It seems that part of the romantic tension is a vivid understanding of the death that may await Riley, and which it turns out she has already narrowly escaped when she herself was a teen. This may not be everyone’s idea of romance, but it emphasizes how much that Riley needs Clay, despite her apparently independent adult life.

The pace of the book is fast and there’s a clear structure with all sorts of detective detail. But it is full of cliché and is pretty creepy. Christina Traister performs the unabridged audiobook with lots of energy: she provides a southern accent with seduction and determination.

© 2017 Christian Perring

Christian Perring teaches in NYC.