I’ve been in something of a reading slump lately and have skipped around amidst genres to try and pique my interest. I’ve had some hits with romantic suspense (Karen Rose, Allison Hunt, Cindy Gerard, Jeanie London) and picked the latest by Rita Herron because of that. Was it a hit? No. But not necessarily a complete dud either. Ms. Herron’s novel is somewhat suspenseful, but the protagonists are not particularly compelling or original, and they’re stuck in a plot that veers from uninspired to unbelievable by book’s end.

Four years ago Lisa Langley was the only young woman to survive the serial killer called the Grave Digger. This serial killer buried his victims alive and left them to die. Lisa was saved when a team of investigators, led by Brad Booker, pieced together enough evidence to discover where she had been buried. In the intervening four years, William White (aka the Grave Digger) was caught, tried, and died in prison. Lisa has slowly managed to piece her life back together. Her carefully orchestrated peace is shattered when Brad brings her news that there has been a new Grave Digger killing.

Special Agent Brad Booker has always felt guilty about not getting to Lisa sooner. Though he was instrumental in saving her life and capturing her attacker, Brad wishes he could have acomplished that faster, mostly because he cared for Lisa and has feelings that run deeper than he’s willing to acknowledge. When a new victim is found buried in the same region as those killed by the Grave Digger, Brad’s convinced a copycat is getting started. Because Lisa was the only one to survive previously, Brad is sure she’ll be a target for this killer as well. When he goes to warn her, he starts to fall for her all over again.

Rescuer falling for rescuee has been done before many times, and oftentimes makes for a very romantic story (one of my favorite mystery series features such a couple). I didn’t feel the romance this time around because the hero and heroine spend far too much time worrying that the other one couldn’t possibly care for them. Further time is spent by Brad feeling guilty about just about everything under the sun. He feels guilty about something that happened to his foster sister in the past, and that colors his interactions on the job. Brad’s an FBI agent who wallows in what-might-have-beens, and I just kept wondering, "How does this guy ever get the job done?"

Lisa is a little better only in that her feelings of victimhood and inadequacy arise out of a very traumatic experience. She was kidnapped by a man she knew and left to die a horrible death. So her feelings of fear and mistrust make a little more sense. I did question her choice to live in an isolated cabin outside of town, even after the author makes it clear she chose it for the good sightlines. That didn’t make a whole lot of sense to me other then as a writerly ploy to make Lisa more vulnerable to attack.

Another writer’s trick that detracted from the story was how often the reader is taken into the thinking of the victims of this killer. We get to be with Lisa in the box in the ground and a couple of the other victims. Once is enough to make the point with this reader, and I never doubted for an instant that this serial killer was a very bad guy.

What did work was the feeling of impending danger and the suspense that it garners. Ms. Herron captured both that mood and the anxiety as the investigators work against the clock to find the attacker. Though the explanation for who was doing what and how it all came to be was over-complicated, she did definitely set the reader a puzzle. It may be worth reading the book for that - if nothing else.