Stevie‘s review of All the Beautiful Brides (Graveyard Falls, Book 1) by Rita Herron
Romantic Suspense published by Montlake Romance 15 Sep 15
I keep seeking out new romantic suspense authors, because, while I love a good mystery, I’m very picky about what constitutes good as far as the other plot components go. In some respects I feel I’m not asking for much in wanting a heroine who can rescue herself and a hero who’s prepared to let her be independent except in situations where two people are very much required to work together in order to reach a solution. More generally, I also get irritated by events in the characters’ present or past that could have been solved long ago, if they’d only shared information instead of brooding about it and keeping quiet while others landed themselves deeper and deeper in a hole.
Having said all that, the mystery part of this story gets off to a good start with a murder that shares a number of features with a series of killings that happened in the same spot way back when. The man convicted of those crimes as a teenager is still in jail, so either he’s innocent as he’s always protested, or someone else is copying his methods. Meanwhile, Cal, the agent sent to head up the investigation, has problems of his own, in the shape of his former partner’s widow, Mona, who’s in town to track down her birth mother, while also working on a call-in show at the local radio station.
Cal and his partner grew up in foster care together, and Cal stepped away from Mona, because he felt a debt towards his best friend – even after he realised the guy was lying to the woman they both claimed to love. Mona knows something of the deception, but not all of it, and, for much of the story, she and Cal are heading towards getting involved, even while he finds a variety of excuses not to let her in on what he knows. In my opinion, that goes beyond protectiveness and into deceitfulness.
As the body count mounts up, we find ourselves in another of those situations I’ve complained about before – getting into the head of the killer before the protagonists have any idea who they’re up against. In this instance it really doesn’t work for me, and nor did the various occasions on which Mona finds herself in peril and requires Cal to rescue her. I also got irritated by the side plot in which one of the more junior police officers in the town gets involved with a journalist and events become decidedly unprofessional on both sides.
There aere some parts of the story that I feel work well as far as they went and would have liked to see expanded upon, such as the reunion between the convicted man and his high school sweetheart. On the other hand, I have my doubts as to whether any of the people still standing, and with their freedom and physical health restored to them, at the end of the story are likely to get a proper happy ending any time soon after the close of the book. Not a series I’m planning to follow any further, although I expect the dynamic between hero and heroine will appeal more to other readers than it does to me.
Grade: C
Summary:
A young woman lies dead at the bottom of a waterfall, dressed in a wedding gown with a rose stem jammed down her throat. And in the small town of Graveyard Falls, the horrifying vision stirs a long-ago nightmare back to life.
FBI Special Agent Cal Coulter gets called in to investigate the murder, which bears a terrifying resemblance to a series of killings committed thirty years ago: three teenage girls were found dead at the waterfall’s base, all bearing rose stems in their throats. The high school football star was convicted and imprisoned for those murders, so now Cal suspects that the real killer is still out there.
Now, the body count is rising again. The monster’s sights are set on counselor Mona Monroe, Cal’s best friend’s widow…and the woman he’s always loved. Can Cal stop the killer before Mona becomes the next victim?
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