High Noon (2007)

It is hard to warm to a heroine as tediously perfect as Phoebe MacNamara, the gorgeous/ sexy/tough/smart/noble protagonist of Nora Roberts' latest novel, High Noon. A single mother and a hostage negotiator for the Savannah police, Phoebe has two dilemmas. First, she's just too busy for a relationship — a moot issue thanks to dimpled multimillionaire Duncan Swift. Their affair (''The man could kiss her into a steamy puddle of lust'') intertwines with Phoebe's other problem: the psychopath who first leaves dead animals on her stoop, then slaughters people close to her. The thriller makes some agreeably nasty twists, but they're almost totally occluded by the fatuous romance. C