To me, a good romantic suspense should keep the reader slightly off balance. I love to think I have the story all figured out, only to have the plot twist and make me rearrange my thinking. Eileen Carr’s latest, though competently executed, really did not do this for me. While reading, I didn’t have any of those moments where you gasp aloud and cannot wait to turn the page.

When the body of a teenager missing since 1991 is discovered, Detective Zach McNight of the Sacramento Police Department is assigned to the obviously cold case. With few leads and virtually no evidence, he contacts the victim’s half-sister Veronica Osborne. Veronica was just a child when her half-brother, Max Shelden, was sent to the Sierra School For Boys after Veronica’s father discovered him with marijuana. She is understandably devastated at the knowledge that the older brother she idolized is now dead.

Max ran away from the Sierra School For Boys twenty years ago and was never seen again. He had a history of not getting along with his stepfather George Osborne. Zach is troubled and intrigued by the relationship Max had with his stepfather, and he naturally turns to Veronica for assistance. As Zach and Veronica grow closer and the evidence against George mounts, another dead body surfaces. But the common denominator is not George Osborne – it’s the Sierra School For Boys.

While the plot moves along well and the story held my interest, the book did not give me that breathless sense of anticipation that I have come to expect from good romantic suspense. The story just felt too predictable for me. By page 80 I felt like I had the scenario worked out in my head. Reading on just confirmed my thoughts.

Though I did not really connect with Zach, I felt a great deal of sympathy for Veronica. Raised by abusive, alcoholic parents, she looked up to her brother Max. With Max gone and her mother dead, Veronica has slipped into the role of caregiver for her father like so many adult children of alcoholics do. Even as he hurls verbal abuse at her she cleans his house and makes sure he eats. The author does a good job of portraying her conflicting emotions and makes her a relatable character. My favorite moment in the book comes when Veronica is informed of the death of her half-brother and she reflects that “half-sibling” is a poor description of their relationship to one another. Though technically accurate, it does not mean that she loves him any less than if he were a whole brother. It was at this point that I truly felt for Veronica, as my sister and I have battled this prejudice our entire lives. Though we may not share a father, we are still sisters. The author obviously gets this and conveys much emotion in this one quiet scene.

Unfortunately, even though the book has some interesting moments, the majority was just okay. Too much of the novel felt like a retread of something I had previously read and there were a few moments that strained credibility for me. For example, when a police officer is dispatched to the location of where the police believe the Deranged Killer will arrive (a highly remote location,) and a car pulls up, the officer doesn’t yell “Get out of the car and put your hands on your head!” No. Officer Bonehead walks over and is like, “Gee, you must be lost.” Of course things go badly from there. Moments like this put me on the side of the Deranged Killer. And I somehow doubt that was the author’s intent.