The Fifth Victim

Beverley Barton is not someone who has crossed my radar before. Probably because she is best known as the author of around 60 romance novels, and that's not my favourite genre.
 
However, she has also written a few that cross into the suspense genre, with the Cherokee Point series.
 
The Fifth Victim, first published in 2003, is the first book in that series. It is followed by The Last to Die and As Good As Dead. The story is as follows...

A brutal serial killer has been moving around the United States, hunting and killing a succession of five unsuspecting female victims in each area he arrives in. With every kill, his strength increases. But this time it's different. This time, deep in Tennessee's Smoky Mountains, he has found his perfect fifth victim...

FBI agent Dallas Sloan has spotted this pattern, and it's personal for him, as one of his family members was a victim in another state. Can he put aside his scepticism and work with a local psychic with a unique gift that allows her to get inside the heads of the victims and maybe the killer himself?

After a slow start, this book soon gathers pace. The main problem is whether you believe that people can have psychic abilities at the level featured here. I know it's only fiction, and that it's all made up, but I prefer a little more realism in my crime/mystery fiction. Yes, there are other characters in this genre who have little hints at this kind of thing, but this is a full on psychic, and completely central to the story.

 

I think I just about managed to buy into the central characters, and it was a fairly enjoyable read. There was a bit more romance than normal (to be expected from a predominantly romance author obviously!) but if you enjoy authors like Karen Rose and P.J. Tracy then you'll probably find something here to like. I think I'll look out for the others in the series (assume that they too will be re-released at some point).