Die For Me - Karen Rose

I have enjoyed all of Karen Rose's previous books and I've reviewed all of them her. It was with great expectations that I started this one!

DIE FOR ME is the story of Vito Ciccotelli, a Philadelphia homicide detective. Vito is called to the scene of a single grave in an isolated snowy field and suspects there might be even more graves beneath the snow. He enlists the aid of archeologist Sophie Johannsen to map the field - and they find a 4x4 matrix of graves, dug with military precision. Nearly half the graves are still empty - the killer isn't finished yet. As Vito investigates, he finds Sophie's expertise in medieval weapons and warfare to be even more valuable than the map she's generated. The villain is an artist who is fascinated with capturing the moment of death. His life goal is have his art viewed by millions - and the fastest way to do that is by converting his death art into a video game where the murder seems all too real - because it is real.

I'm having some trouble grading it though. After I had complained about her murderes also being victims and how that upset me a bit she finally wrote a truly bad guy, who is evil and has no excuses. As usual she is very good in the suspense part, here not so much about the next victim but about when and where will the killer be discovered and caught.

I had a few problems however with the hero and the heroine. I just couldn't find any chemistry between them. They were nice people and certainly deserving of a happy ending but I have a few doubts about why they fell in love besides the phisical attraction. It's true that their respective pasts were difficult and needed some closure but Rose has written other damaged characters with whom I can better relate to.

In this book Rose leaves a lot of loose ends, maybe all the time used to give space to the secondary characters who are now hero / heroine material interfered with my enjoyement of the story. But of course I am now looking forward to Nick, Maggy, Susannah and Daniel's stories as all the other Ciccotelly brothers.

All in all it was still a very strong book.
Grade: B-