The Last Lover
Grade : C+

Sally Harrington, introduced in Exposé, returns in what is a hard-to-classify novel. It's a mystery, which echoes some of the humor of Evanovich and Cruisie, by an author who more recently has been doing romantic suspense. Set in the world of national news stations (a la CNN) The Last Lover also brings to mind Sparkle Hayter's Robin Hudson series, with a dollop of Jackie Collins' glitz thrown in.

Told in the first person, The Last Lover is a dialogue driven book. Sally, like Stephanie and Robin, is extremely likable, and though she's not as funny, she's a woman we're rooting for from page one. But the mystery takes a long time to get going, and when it does, it becomes convoluted and remains unresolved by the end of the book. It's unlike most other series mysteries in that Van Wormer reveals the murderer of the first book within the plot of this one.

Sally's life is seemingly on track. She's been offered a plum job at a CNN-like news agency and is in love with a man who loves her back. Or so she thinks. Sally begins to question that love when she finds out that Spencer may have run off with a beautiful Hollywood actress. Her problems increase when the starlet's boyfriend, a reputed mobster, is killed. The police think she's the logical suspect, since she was the last to speak to the man and Sally has no way of proving otherwise.

Sally's a great character, but the situations and the plot line are a little difficult to believe. Although she and Spencer have been experiencing some growing pains in their relationship, they're supposed to be in love. Yet, as soon as things go wrong, and they do go very wrong, Sally's ready to move on. The explanation for this is that Sally has difficulty committing to any man, but I still found her abrupt about-face a little hard to believe.

As I said earlier, this is a hard to classify story. The suspense is really pretty negligible and the mystery doesn't hold the reader's attention. A further problem is the fact that Sally is constantly acting like an amateur. She hasn't had much experience as an investigative reporter, but she's had plenty as a researcher, and she's worked for both newspaper and television in that capacity. Still, she stumbles her way through the investigation and she withholds stories from her new boss at the network. This struck me as not only foolish, but unbelievable as well. These are people Sally hopes to impress yet she makes decisions about things she won't tell them without a second thought.

Though the humor is not as broad as Evanovich writes, fans of Stephanie Plum will enjoy Sally Harrington. The romance is a minor part of the story. Sally is torn between Spencer and a former love, but it is not as much of a subplot as the love triangle in the bounty hunter series is. Ms. Van Wormer will please her fans with the secondary characters in The Last Lover. They have had stories of their own in earlier books like Talk and Exposé, so readers will be able to revisit them. I really enjoyed Sally's humor and sense of adventure. For that reason, I'd pick up another by this author, even though The Last Lover is not her best effort.

Reviewed by Jane Jorgenson
Grade : C+
Book Type: Mystery

Sensuality: N/A

Review Date : November 4, 2000

Publication Date: 2005/03

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