Dancing in the Dark is your basic “C” book. There’s nothing truly objectionable here, but nothing truly stellar either. If you read romantic suspense, you’ve doubtless read similar books before.

It’s been two years since Sara Martin’s husband and son died in an auto accident, but she still can’t bring herself to take off her wedding ring. She doesn’t date, or even really think about it. In some ways, she’s moved on; she has a new home that is all her own, and a rewarding job as a photojournalist of sorts. She has several close friends who really care about her. She has also gotten several disturbing phone calls in the middle of the night, from someone who just sits there breathing. When her friends talk her into calling the police, she reluctantly goes down to the station – all along figuring it’s probably nothing to worry about.

Meanwhile, Detective Eric D’Angelo is pursuing a serial killer. Three Austin women are dead, and it looks like the guy is just getting started. All of the victims are prostitutes, and all have been brutally stabbed and raped. Each is also found missing a different body part, and since the hero always leaves a home-made Sinatra CD playing, the cops and press dub him “The Sinatra Killer.” Eric and Sara meet when she files the complaint about her late-night caller, and Eric soon finds himself going beyond the call of duty by arriving on Sara’s doorstep with a caller ID box. He installs it for her, and the sparks begin to fly.

If you’ve read even one romantic suspense novel, you can probably guess where this is headed. It’s pretty obvious early on that Sara’s caller is the Sinatra killer, and it’s also obvious that it’s someone she knows. The actual identity of the killer is a little harder to guess, but I managed anyway. I wouldn’t say that each twist and turn of the plot is telegraphed ages beforehand, but it’s definitely not full of surprises either.

The characters are not unlikable. It would be hard not to feel some sympathy for a woman who lost her family, and it was nice to see her fall in love again. Eric is a perfectly nice guy; he’s concerned about Sara’s safety, and although his previous marriage was unsuccessful, he’s willing to put the past behind him. Thankfully, he’s not one of those brooding types who spends the entire book thinking of himself as unmarriageable because he’s had one failure – though he does pursue this line of thought at first.

The book is set in Austin, which I thought was fun. Lately most contemporaries I’ve read are set in major cities like New York or Seattle, or in made-up small towns. Dancing in the Dark actually has a nice sense of place, and it’s a place that’s fairly unique. For me it also has a personal connection, as my sister recently lived in Austin for several years. I had to stifle a laugh when Eric mentioned his dislike of the “Birkenstock crowd.” Before she moved, my sister was probably their poster child.

Though this is not an unpleasant read, it does have some weaknesses, chief among them that the plot is not all that original or inspiring. I’ve been there and done that, and so, probably, have you. Sara and Eric aren’t annoying, but they aren’t really compelling either. The plot doesn’t really help them out much. Its arc is obvious early on, which sometimes makes the characters seem a little slow on the uptake. More than one character appears totally unworried about the danger of the serial killer, and the precautions taken to protect Sara (once they do finally figure out that the killer and her caller are the same person) are woefully inadequate. What bothered me most is that at one point someone close to Sara is attacked, and the killer calls Sara’s cell phone to tell her about it. Sara identifies the source of the call, but neither Sara nor the police seems to wonder why the killer knows her cell phone number. Unless Sara gives her cell phone number out to every person she runs across, one would think that she would at least consider that someone who has her cell phone number might be someone she knows.

At the end of the day, this is simply an average book which is neither truly objectionable nor amazing. It’s more or less a wash, but if you really enjoy romantic suspense and want to sample everything out there, then this might fit the bill for you.