Book Review: The Last Victim by Karen Robards

Author: Karen Robards
ISBN-13: 9780345535818

Publisher: Random House Publishing Group

Publication date: 8/7/2012

Synopsis:
A sought-after expert in criminal pathology, Dr. Charlotte Stone regularly sits face-to-face with madmen. At the age of sixteen, she herself survived a serial killer’s bloodbath. Because of the information she gave police, the Boardwalk Killer went underground, but Charlie kept her postmortem visions of the victims to herself. Years later, to protect her credibility as a psychological expert, she tells no one about these apparitions. Now a teenage girl is missing, her family slaughtered. The Boardwalk Killer—or a sick copycat with his M.O.—is back. This is the one case Charlie knows she shouldn’t go near. But she also knows that she may be the one person in the world who can stop this vicious killer, especially when she receives help from an unexpected source: The fiery spirit of a seductive bad boy who refuses to be ignored.

So yesterday I'm wandering through the library, searching the shelves with my head at that awkward angle so that I can read the titles and names of the authors on the books.

I browse the romance aisle, glancing around cautiously, secretly hoping no one around me realizes I'm in the romance aisle.  I hope that they think I'm looking at the mystery books that line the left side of the aisle instead of the steamy novels that line the right side.

At the same time, I give myself a mental kick because I want to write romance novels, so I shouldn't be embarrassed that I read them.  Then I look at the cover of a small paperback that shows a practically naked man and woman in a compromising position and the embarrassment returns.  I don't want to write that kind of romance precisely. 

After searching the shelves for authors that are my usual "go to's", I realize I've read everything published by all those authors and I need to look for something new.  Well, new to me, I am in a library, not Barnes and Noble.

I look over to the mystery side of the aisle and think I did want to read more suspense books anyway.  I like romantic suspense very much.  I just wish I recognized a few of the authors names so that I could be sure that I wasn't picking up a thriller like I did the other day.  That book I had to stop reading because it scared the crap out of me.  I wish libraries would sort books like barnesandnoble.com does.  I click romance, then whittle it down to contemporary romantic suspense, and I know what I'm getting. 

Anyway, I picked up a book called The Last Victim by Karen Robards.  Hmmm, could be interesting. 

I read the book in a few hours.  Seriously I am now officially a Karen Robards fan.  I have no idea what her other books are like, but this one was fantastic.  The story concept was so unique!  I don't want to give away anything that happened in the book because you should all go buy it, or check it out, right now.  But the suspense was good, the romance better and the cliffhanger at the end made me want to cry.  I had no idea this was a series book and when I realized this was a relatively new book and the next one in the series doesn't come out till September???? I didn't cry but I shouted. 

"What?!  I can't wait till SEPTEMBER!"

Since I'm in the process of writing a romantic suspense that is a two book series, I am enthralled with the way Karen finished this book.  I can only hope that at the end of my first novel, whoever is reading it stands up and shouts, "What??  I can't wait till the next book comes out!"