I jumped at the chance to read the first book in Karen Robard's newest series with its intriguing premise. Dr Charlie Stone studies serial killers, the motivation her own narrow escape from the Boardwalk Killer as a teenager. It has been 15 years since that terrible night but it seems the Boardwalk Killer, or a copycat, has surfaced and the FBI need Charlie's help if they hope to save his latest victim. Using her expertise in profiling, and her hidden ability to see the spirits of the newly dead, Charlie assists the FBI team to piece together the clues that may end up leading her right into her worst nightmare.

I have no way of justifying my assessment of this novel without possibly revealing a spoiler related to the romantic element of the story, so read on at your own risk...

There was a lot that I enjoyed about this novel but within the first few pages when Dr Charlie Stone describes a serial killer, Michael Garland, sitting across from her during a clinical assessment, as 'hot' I was taken aback. Despite being jarred by what seemed to me to be a totally inappropriate descriptor, I dismissed it and kept reading. A few pages later and Garland is stabbed as he returns to his cell and despite her best efforts, Charlie is unable to save him. While I admired Charlie's determined effort to save Garland despite his obvious fatal wound, I was a bit disturbed by the depth of her pity for a man convicted of murdering seven women as she witnesses his spirit being pulled into a purple mist, but again I chose to brush it aside. Yet from there the relationship between Charlie and Garland took a path I was even less comfortable with as Garland's spirit attaches itself to her. Between Charlie's repeated admiration of the dead man's physique, charm and her inexplicable sympathy for him I was incredulous, however I held on, thinking that we would discover that in fact Garland wasn't responsible for the murders after all, he was wrongly accused or framed or something. Garland certainly denies his guilt, but the lack of 'the light' and the presence of the 'screaming mist' seems to at least confirm the man has done something unsavoury and by the end of the novel there is no evidence that Garland was anything but a serial killer, abusive childhood non withstanding.
I just couldn't deal with this relationship, especially when it becomes sexually intimate, which I thought was wrong on so many levels. Even if the author reveals in later books of the series that Garland is innocent of the crimes for which he was convicted, it will be too late for me.

It's a shame because there were other elements of the story I enjoyed yet I can't get past the romantic relationship and I can't recommend The Last Victim for that very reason, though others seem happy to overlook it, given its average 4 star rating on Goodreads. It's not for me though, you will have to make up your own mind.