At Risk
by Judith E. French

Historical romance veteran French's first contemporary romantic suspense novel ably evokes an appealing locale, then bogs down in cliché and contrivance. In coastal Delaware, a serial killer who calls himself the Game Master has been stashing his victims' bones in underwater crab traps. Soon after he murders a student of Dr. Elizabeth Clarke in her office at upscale Somerville College, Lizzy begins to receive ominous phone calls, "gifts" of funeral wreaths and dead animals, and visits from a marauder who steals nothing, yet makes his presence inside her home known. Lizzy is suspicious of three people-a smarmy grad student, the security expert who's her best friend and her ex-boyfriend, the ex-con Jack Rafferty. As Jack and Lizzy reunite for both romance and detection, neither emerges as a coherent character. The Game Master, too, comes across as a grab bag of standard pop-culture serial-killer symptoms rather than a convincing figure. French (The Conqueror) never resolves his contradictions nor the many holes in her plot, such as how a well-known man can target, travel and kill so widely without arousing comment from a community depicted as small, gossipy and close-knit.

Other Books by Judith E. French

Blood Kin

The Warrior

The Barbarian

The Conqueror

Falcon's Angel

The Taming Of Shaw Maccade

Judith E. French's Bio

Judith E. French, winner of the 1999 Romantic Times Career Achievement Award in Romantic Historicals, is the author of twenty-three full-length historicals. Her adventure-packed novels, known for strong heroines and authentic research, are translated into numerous foreign languages and sold worldwide. Judith is a member of Women Writing the West, Eastern Shore Writers, and Romance Writers of America, and has been writing professionally since she was seventeen. A country girl and an acknowledged tomboy, Judith grew up on a farm, with loving parents and grandparents. She had a Tom Sawyer childhood, full of ponies, fireflies, and puppies. Books were always a passion of Judith's, and her fondest memories include afternoons spent reading or listening to her granddad tell ghost stories.

Judith and her husband reside in a restored 18th century farmhouse in rural Delaware that has been a family home for over 250 years. They are the parents of four children and ten grandchildren, as well as owners of one spoiled Norwegian Elkhound and three independent Siamese cats. Following a strong family tradition of storytelling, Judith's oldest daughter, Colleen Faulkner, is also a best-selling romance novelist. Judith's March 2001 release from BallantineIvy is The Taming of Shaw MacCade, a Romeo and Juliet historical romance set in frontier Missouri. She is currently working on another book, a story she calls Falcon's Angel woven of sea mist and dreams with a Charleston and Outer Banks setting. Readers may contact her at .