Hunted (The Profiler)
Rookie FBI profiler Evelyn Baine is called in to investigate a crime scene involving the Bakersville Burier, a serial killer whose calling card is leaving dead women half buried in the forests of Virginia. Although she is young and relatively inexperienced, her bosses think Evelyn has a knack for getting into the heads of the killers she is tracking—but this one eludes her, just as he eluded two previous FBI agents, who ended up dead. Is Evelyn next? When she is abducted (and released) early on, she initially doesn’t connect it to her new case, a plot element that seems a little hard to swallow. Then pieces from Evelyn’s past start coming back to her—like the time when her best friend was abducted when she was a preteen, and Evelyn should have been a victim as well. Right. There’s an awful lot of predictable twists and coincidences here, but Heiter’s characters are interesting, and the dialogue is realistic. Libraries where serial killer novels are popular might consider adding this debut novel, which is set to have a sequel. --Rebecca Vnuk