The Search is set on an island in the Pacific Northwest where the heroine, Fiona Bristow finds sanctuary and fulfillment running her business of training dogs. She also volunteers with the canine search and rescue unit on the island.
It’s not long before we discover that Fiona has a dark terror in her past—years ago she was the only survivor of a serial killer. After an additional tragic event, the killer was caught and imprisoned. She came to the island seeking peace and solitude from her past and to do what she really loves—work with dogs. She also owns three lovable Labradors, which she has trained to be search and rescue dogs.
As with the story lines of most of Roberts’ books, Fiona soon meets a handsome stranger. Simon is an artist that has just moved to the island. He turns out to have inherited an out-of-control puppy that he brings to Fiona hoping that she’ll train the dog for him. The interplay between Fiona and Simon is also familiar Roberts’ territory. Their relationship circles between passion, anger, humor, and frustration. Their personalities seem to clash even as they are drawn to each other.
The aspect of working with training dogs and also the search and rescue group is an interesting one that will definitely draw in dog lovers. But Roberts’ details in explaining how to train the dogs and also several situations of search and rescue operations—including one for a small child and one for a couple in the wild forests of the island are fascinating and even educational.
But the book’s main story line is that her past has found her again. A copycat killer has emerged from the dark, again stalking and killing young women using tactics and props similar to those that Fiona’s captor used.
Working with the police, the FBI, and being helped and protected by Simon and her other friends and family on the island—the book traces their steps to find out who the new killer is and to catch him.
Roberts is a master at dialogue and developing relationships between her characters, but after almost 200 novels, her books are starting to read and sound very similar—the same basic outline with different locations and characters filling in the parts. She usually has a hero or heroine who is either on the run from his or her past or has had a tragic event that has shaped his or her life.
The books are set in various countries, states, and locales that are interesting and obviously she has done her research on the area she is writing about. But after you’ve read a number of her books, other than meeting the new characters and reading about the various fascinating places—you could almost fill in the rest of the book yourself while adding detail as you go along.
Roberts often writes her stories in trilogies—their personalities are developed through the three books and so you get to really know and meet a variety of characters. The Search, as a single novel, is still a fascinating read, but you don’t get as “into” the people in the book as you do with the trilogies she writes.
It’s hard to imagine someone being able to write as many books as she does in a single year. But her popularity remains strong, so that is probably a powerful incentive for her and her publishers. However, you start to think that her books might be better served if she would possibly spend more time with each book and publish fewer per year.
The end of The Search is however, exciting and suspenseful and will keep her faithful readers and many first-timers coming back for more.
