I don’t know where the romantic suspense genre would be if it weren’t for inept hit men. Luckily for the heroine of True Vision, the story features quite possibly the worst killer I’ve ever seen. Despite the ridiculousness of the number of failed attempts made on her life, the book was an interesting, sexy story.

Charlie Troudeau is an idealistic reporter in a small community, rooting out corruption and bad business and exposing them to the public. She also has an empathic tendency, an ability to read and experience the emotions of those around her. However, when a total stranger that bears a close likeness to her is killed in a hit-and-run accident right before her eyes, those abilities are supercharged; Charlie can experience intense visions and flashbacks when she touches people.

Meanwhile, that woman who was killed, Laurette, was coming to tell Charlie something important. Noah Lassiter, Laurette’s partner in the Chicago PD, comes down to do some of his own investigating into her death. What he finds, though, is that it wasn’t an isolated incident. As Charlie experiences several attacks and near-death experiences, the two of them must figure out who is trying to kill her, and why.

Obviously this story has paranomal elements, but as someone who isn’t particularly fond of typical paranomals, I did find Charlie’s abilities brought an interesting twist to the story while still maintaining a level of realism. I do wish, though, that Charlie’s prior empathy had been presented more clearly as something more than just being a sympathetic and understanding person.

Noah is fairly standard cop-with-a-dark-past fare, but still managed to be a fresh character. One thing that bugged me, though, was his inability to ignore Charlie’s body even in life-or-death situations. I suppose this is supposed to be romantic or sexy, but it sort of weirded me out that even as he’s rescuing her from an assailant, he notices her boobs. This happens a few times, and I think that might have affected how I saw him as a person. Judgmental? Maybe. But hey, I’m a reviewer. All this said, I did feel a romantic connection between Noah and Charlie. They have physical chemistry, sure, but there’s love there, too.

There are some unanswered questions here. Some of them — like the exact nature of Charlie’s brand of empathy, and why Laurette had come down to speak to Charlie — may be explored to a further extent in subsequent books (this is the first of a trilogy), but others were just a result of poor explanation, I think. I wanted more information about Laurette and Noah’s lives and relationship in Chicago. Since we’re being critical, I’ll also point out that there is more than one plot twist that I can only ascribe as being a deus ex machina, given its unexpected and unrealistic appearance in solving a subplot’s conflict.

But, let’s focus on the big picture: I liked this book. Unrealistic at times, perhaps, but I had a hard time putting it down.