Sometimes I’m in complete sync with the RITA nominations while other times I’m left scratching my head. This 2008 Golden Heart Award finalist for Novel with Strong Romantic Elements left me puzzled. The “romantic elements” and the heroine are the weakest and most flawed parts of this book.

Mick O’Shaughnessy is lead investigator for the South Carolina State Law Investigative Division on a case involving the rape, torture, and murder of college coeds. His investigation leads him to the small liberal arts college that Meg Connelly attends.

Meg is a busy graduate student working on a Master’s degree in both economics and history. She’s doing the economics degree because it will get her a job, but her real love is history. Abandoned by her fanatically religious parents as a teenager, Meg has all kinds of relationship issues. She’s paying her way through graduate school by teaching a statistics course and working at a local restaurant. She’s also the faculty advisor for the third victim’s sorority.

Both Meg and Mick feel as if they know each other when they meet. Mick wants to pursue the attraction, but Meg doesn’t agree since she believes she has no time or desire for relationships.

The strengths of the book were in the police investigation of the killer the media dubs The Professor. I found parts of the investigation fascinating. I liked the detailed police investigation as they pieced together the killer’s motives and searched in painstaking detail for the killer. While I read a lot of mysteries, I tend to avoid psychological thrillers and mysteries with graphic details; we get a lot here. There are detailed descriptions of the autopsies and murders, some of the latter told from the villain’s POV.

Meg has too many TSTL moments for my taste. She acts like an idiot when questioned by Mick in the early scenes. Despite knowing the danger for women from the serial killer, she repeatedly goes out alone at night. Meg also withholds potentially life-threatening information from Mick.

I had a lot of problems trying to find the romance. While Meg and Mick meet fairly early on and are instantly attracted, they’re not together again for a long time. The focus is really on Mick’s investigation of the serial killer. In fact, it seems as if there are more scenes from the villain’s POV than with Mick and Meg together. In the end I was glad more of the focus isn’t on Meg or their relationship, as I didn’t care for her.

I find Mick an interesting main character. He’s thorough and determined in his pursuit of the villain. I can easily see him as the protagonist in a series of thrillers, provided he has a more worthy love interest than Meg.

A note of caution: the sensuality rating of kisses only applies solely to the hero and heroine. In addition to graphic descriptions of the torture and murder of the victims, there are also some graphic descriptions of the villain’s rape, and pleasure in the rapes, of his victims. This isn’t a book for readers looking for much romance, and it isn’t for the squeamish.