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I liked this one better than Outsider because the hero, while cruel and clueless, wasn’t a whiner like the hero of Outsider. Plus, I liked this heroine a lot better. She had a difficult life (escaped rape and murder when she was 12 and then had to live with a gin-drinking, verbally abusive granny for years), but still kept her sense of humor and entrepreneurship after granny finally died.

So the premise: hero is an FBI agent (and brother to the chief of Jacobsville police). He is trying to catch a serial killer who is targeting 12 year-old girls. He’s just bought a ranch in Jacobsville next door to the heroine and her evil granny. Evil granny mercifully dies of a heart attack and hero reluctantly helps heroine.

They end up having sex and a one-week relationship. Then hero rejects her because he never wants to be married again after his first wife died of cancer during her pregnancy. He makes an ass of himself rejecting the heroine all over town, but this isn’t extreme behavior for a DP hero � and the town thoroughly rejects him so there’s that.

There is a lot of police procedural stuff (including an autopsy of a 12 year-old victim � Really, Diana Palmer? Why was this necessary?) and the culprit was beyond obvious to this reader -so skim away if that isn’t your thing.

The last third of the story is crammed with drama � including:
Catching the murderer
Medical drama and hero’s change of heart
Heroine’s hidden abilities.

Diana Palmer checklist:
Hairy chest Yes
Breast Description Small
Cigarettes No
AlcoholBrandy for the heroine. Whisky while the hero is waiting for the h’s surgery to be over.
Town Descriptions Population of 2,000! There are mansions on Main Street. Two feedstores. Florist shop. Café. Baptist church. Baptist cemetery. Funeral home. Veterinarian who cremates pets for pet funerals. There’s a strip mall with a thrift store in it � next to the Community College.
Gardenia Scent Roses
LOL detail Heroine speaks fluent Arabic having never gone beyond high school or working two part time jobs in Jacobsville.??
Cutesy detail The hero has a Bucar - the FBI’s term for a bureau conveyance. He’s very proud of this and mentions it several times.
DP hobbyhorse Small town good. Big city bad. “People in small towns mostly get married and have children and raise them. We don’t look at life the way people in cities do. Down here, honor and self-respect are a lot more important than closing a business deal and having a martini lunch. We’re just simple people, Mr. Grier. But we look deeper than outsiders do. And we judge by what we see.�
DP is trolling us“So everybody in town is celibate?� he queried.