The Last Close Call is a romantic suspense novel by Laura Griffin whose many books often deal with different forensic specialities and how they are used to solve crime – there is always a romance as part of the story. I have read a quite a few of her books which are always fast paced – they are not great fiction but they are very enjoyable.
Rowan is a forensic genealogist who was working with the police to track criminal suspects through DNA left at crime scenes. The heavy workload left her with emotional and physical burnout. She is now trying to establish a private business tracking down adoptees and missing relatives through DNA.
Jack is a detective investigating a rape and assault case that he believes is related to an unsolved case he was involved with several years ago. A rapist was targeting students at a college. He was never caught and the assaults stopped. Jack believes that the rapist is back and has escalated to murder. Jack reaches out to Rowan for assistance, but she refuses to become involved, stating that she has quit police investigating and is solely focused on her private practice. Jack persists and Rowan reluctantly agrees to help with this one case. Rowan was at college during the time of the original crimes and knew one of the victims. With Rowan’s help, DNA research provides clues to a potential suspect’s identity but they still need the suspect’s DNA to be sure.
I have some significant doubts about exactly how easy it is to trace criminals in this way, and how ethical the activities are of the investigators in this story. Human rights and civil liberties appear to be well and truly trampled during the course of the story but as the book takes place in Texas and I live in Yorkshire I decided to just go with the flow. If you accept that an investigation could be conducted this way and that the results in the book are obtainable then it’s a good story and the romance is well done. I enjoyed it.
Anne Is Reading 