One of the advantages to long running mystery series is that you have the opportunity to watch the characters develop. The disadvantage, especially for small town cops, is that the growing body count makes you wonder why the citizenry doesn’t just make a break for it and get out of the murderous community while they can. In the case of Grizzly Falls, Montana I couldn’t help wondering why they didn’t just rename themselves Grisly Falls and be done with it. Three serial killers in a relatively short amount of time certainly would have had me calling the real estate agent and planning my exodus.

Last Christmas saw Selena Alvarez, along with her partner in crime solving, Regan Pescoli, working a rather unusual serial killer case that all revolved around DNA. This year their dream of a quiet holiday filled with people offing each other over petty grievances is once more interrupted by a psycho.

It begins simply enough, with a heart-rending missing persons case. A popular waitress, a single mom with two kids, disappears. Her boss at the local diner knows immediately that something is wrong – the young lady never misses a shift. When her car is discovered abandoned close to her home, everyone suspects foul play. But it isn’t till the first ice sculpture shows up at the church nativity creche that the whispers of a serial killer begin. A naked – and obviously dead – young woman can be seen within the sculpture. Regan and Selena know this means the clock is ticking on their missing mom. But they have relatively few leads to follow.

The case grows even more complicated when Selena stops a break in at her home only to find herself face to face with PI Dylan O’Keefe. The two have a complicated history from the time they were in San Bernadino law enforcement together – a history neither cares to repeat. Yet the young man Dylan is tracking led him straight to her home. What are the odds that he chose it at random? As the two work on solving the case of the missing teen Selena finds herself falling even deeper into the rabbit hole. Dylan isn’t the only part of her past she has tried to forget, and now it looks like it is all catching up to her.

This is the fourth book in this series, but I didn’t feel I missed anything by not reading the other three. The relationships are clearly laid out, the author gives a concise history without overburdening us with detail, and the characters are fully articulated. Regan’s relationship with her lover Santana might have been a bit sketchy but since this tale clearly focuses on Selena and Dylan I didn’t find myself missing those details.

I also felt like I got really lucky in the choice of book since so much of Selena’s past is explained in this novel. We learn why she left San Bernadino and which big secret she has been hiding. And she moves beyond her intimacy issues into a relationship with Dylan. I was impressed with how well he was able to put the past behind him and reach towards a future with the rather damaged Selena. She carries a lot of baggage, and the hero really shows his expertise at handling it all. I also appreciated the way the romance was managed. These two have moved beyond the big misses and secrets that had kept them apart before, and were able to have an adult relationship that involved conversing about their problems. They each had reasons to tread warily, but they didn’t allow them to cause angsty scenes or nasty blowups. This was crucial since they were coming together while working on two rather complicated cases. The book probably couldn’t have stood the stress of both the mystery and an over dramatized relationship.

The mystery itself is interesting and frightening. I was pleased with how the solution progressed and the little details of police work shown throughout. The working partnership between Selena and Regan was highlighted to perfection here. Regan took lead on the case, allowing Selena time to have a bit of a life. You got the sense Selena picked up slack when Regan was over burdened on the home front. Balancing the work between them added a sense of reality to the resolution. Too often in romantic suspense you have to wonder how the hero or heroine has time to both work the case and fall in love. Here you could see how it would work.

One quibble that I noticed was that while Selena was Hispanic, little of that came out in the conversations regarding her past. Since she spoke Spanish and clearly came from the kind of background where her family’s culture would have made a difference in how she was raised, I was a bit disappointed in that. The one bright spot in this area was the role the Catholic church played at a crucial point in her life. That, at least, seemed very realistic to me.

The story certainly isn’t flawless (few are) but I found it to be an entertaining romantic suspense. It’s a good pick for anyone who enjoys this genre.

Buy it at A/iB/BN/K