Abigail Browning, a Boston detective, is haunted by the murder of her FBI special agent husband, Chris. It happened seven years ago on their honeymoon, and she has vowed not to stop until she finds Chris's killer.

Her quest takes her back to the scene of the crime, Mt. Desert Island in Maine, where secrets abound and Abigail is an outsider trying to break the code, tolerated only because she is Chris's widow. She gets help from Owen Garrison, Chris's friend and neighbor who found his dead body and now has an interest in Abigail's live one.

THE WIDOW by Carla Neggers may be one of the best romantic suspense books I've read in a long time.

Simply put, Ms. Neggers kept me guessing until the very end. Rather than red herrings that I later would easily point to as such, she unfolded the story in such a way that each suspect truly could have been the murderer. That alone says it all but in addition, Ms. Neggers provided a haunting romantic story, filled with interesting characters, some of whom I loved and some I despised. All the good guys don't get what they want at the end and all the bad guys don't get their comeuppance. Rather, the reader is left with a complex tale that whets her appetite for more, if not of this story and these characters, then certainly of Ms. Neggers' writing. I can't think of a more satisfactory ending.