It's so disconcerting to realize that you are growing older. That thought occurred to me after I finished reading Elizabeth Adler's romantic suspense novel Please Don't Tell (#398). It was definitely the serial killer aspect of the story that appealed to me here, not the romance. In fact, I thought her denouement was actually rather cynical about the depth and endurance of relationships in general. That was a romance buzz kill for me!
In Please Don't Tell, there is a serial killer on the loose in San Francisco. He carefully chooses and stalks his victims in advance and young Emergency Room doctor Vivian Dexter is already in his sights before she treats his latest victim in the ER. Ms. Adler gives us several possible perpetrators woven into the lives of the three Dexter women. There's Vivi, the doctor who can't find love; her younger sister JC who thinks the world owes her a living, and their aunt Fen, the woman who raised them, living in an isolated cottage on the cliffs near Big Sur. I did (successfully, as it turns out) figure out who the killer was well before the final reveal, but maybe you won't. There are plausible motives for at least three men here.
This is not a bad book, but it's not the frothy tale of intrigue I was really expecting, either. I have to admit I've enjoyed Ms. Adler's earlier books much more. And I really could do without the gratuitous "F" bombs scattered rather heavily throughout. I guess that's just another sign of my age. Sigh...
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