If You Hear Her

First of a projected romantic suspense trilogy, this hefty superheated exercise in uninhibited abandon alternates between a serial psycho-killer musing over his unlucky victims and a titillating fling between sexy blind chef Lena Riddle and sexier state cop Ezra King in smalltown Ash, Ky. Ezra, trying to recuperate from wounds to body and soul, is so attracted to Lena that he can’t help plunging into an informal investigation of screams she hears outside her rural home in the middle of the night. This allows Walker to introduce a grisly psychotic murder and swell her narrative with complicated subplots involving an abused wife, an incognito mystery author, and Lena’s ex-lover, the local prosecutor. Notwithstanding Walker’s heavy reliance on an adolescent vocabulary and stale plotting, romance audiences will likely simmer breathlessly along with her steamy leading characters. (Nov.)