Ellen North is an assistant county attorney in the small town of Deer Lake, Minnesota. Having relocated to the boonies to escape the big-city crime scene, she and the rest of the town are shocked when little Josh Kirkwood is kidnapped. A suspect is quickly apprehended and it looks like the police have gotten their man.

Then Josh is returned, while the suspect sits in jail, and another boy is taken. Josh won't talk -- to anybody. Either there is an unknown accomplice, or the police have the wrong man in custody. Ellen is all for the accomplice. Not everyone shares her beliefs, including the judge who allows the suspect free on bail.

Ellen's backstabbing ex-lover, a snake lawyer in the best tradition, shows up as the new defense lawyer on the case. The former defense lawyer dies suddenly of an apparent suicide. The body of the second little boy is found. And the killer is now after Ellen.

The romance is provided by true-crime writer Jay Butler Brooks, a smooth-talking ex-lawyer from Alabama who wants to turn this case into a novel. Ellen is repulsed by him, but as she gradually gets to know him, and he gradually drops his defenses, they are drawn together. This is a wounded-hero-in-need-of-redemption plot, and it is served up adequately, though in my opinion, too briefly. Maybe a sequel is being planned.

One problem I had with the book was the sheer number of characters involved in the story. This is almost a necessary evil when writing suspense so the reader doesn't guess the killer right away (I didn't) but you almost need a scorecard to keep track of the players, and you never get to know any of them very well, not even the heroine. Hoag, perhaps intentionally, cluttered up the plot even more with the naming of the characters. There's a man called Priest who is important to the plot. There's a man who IS a priest who has another minor role. It's distracting to have to stop and make a mental checklist while reading.

I also had trouble with one of the main premises of the plot, that of Josh, who won't talk when he's returned home. There are no signs of physical abuse, so we assume he's been psychologically tortured. It's a big stretch to accept that years of loving, close parenting is completely destroyed in just a few days, and that Josh won't say a single word to anyone, even the mother he adores. I'm sure this happens in real life, but asking adult readers to accept the reasoning of a child may be frustrating to some. Of course, if he talks, there's no plot; the mystery would be quickly resolved.

Hoag's writing style is crisp and tight. There are no long, unnecessary passages of either description or dialog, and her characters are believable and interesting, though I still think the cast of thousands was unneeded to make the story work.

If your bookshelf includes crime thrillers as well as conventional romance, Tami Hoag has written an enjoyable novel which will undoubtedly show up sometime as a TV movie. Diehard mystery fans, let me know what you think.

--Cathy Sova