This is a difficult time for Morgan. Her divorce has just become final. Even though she remains friends with her ex-husband and knows him to be a loving, devoted father, she has difficulty letting her twelve-year-old daughter Dulcie stay with him. She is determined to keep Dulcie from experiencing the same torments she herself knew as a child.

Cleo is in conflict. She can engage in and enjoy sex with her customers, but she is unable to be intimate with her fiancé, the man she loves. A complication has developed – Cleo has written a tell-all book about her life and livelihood, and her fiancé is afraid she may be facing danger from some of the men she has written about. She gives a copy to Morgan to read.

Meanwhile, a prostitute has been murdered in a macabre fashion with aspects of Catholic ritual. Detective Noah Jordain, who is originally from New Orleans and plays jazz piano, is fearful that this may be but the first crime by a serial killer. His suspicions are proved correct when a second victim is found. This woman had been one who was counseled by Morgan in prison, and she is asked to identify the body. Noah is hoping to get some assistance in solving the case by speaking with Morgan. Morgan is willing to give some general insight into the psychology of such killers, but she can provide no useful information for him about this particular victim plus she is constrained by doctor-client confidentiality.

This principle is put to the test when another prostitute is killed, and Cleo disappears. The police are reluctant to investigate the disappearance, and Morgan cannot help wondering if the two are related.

I put off reading The Halo Effect because the back cover blurb made broad suggestions about sexual fantasies and secret confessions. I was in no mood to wade through 300-plus pages of lurid sex a la Bertrice Small. That back cover blurb, however, is misleading. You’d think that having the heroine be a sex therapist would provide a plethora of opportunities to indulge in sex, sex, and more sex. The sad truth is that it provides multiple examples of lonely people who can’t make a connection to others sexually or otherwise. Remember The Joy of Sex? This one could be called The Sorrow of Sex. Yes, there are graphic descriptions of various characters inserting Tab A into Slot B, but it doesn’t sound like these people are having much fun.

And heroine Morgan Snow is just as messed up as many of the others. This is a woman who needs some serious therapy herself. She had a perfectly decent marriage to a perfectly decent man she allowed to decline into tepid friendship. No sex. No excitement. Farther along in the story she starts to experience sexual excitement under definitely kinky circumstances just about the time she starts exhibiting some annoying Gothic heroine tendencies. Moreover, decades later she’s still suffering from her actress mother’s death from drugs and alcohol when she was eight ... and transferring that insecurity onto her talented daughter by trying to stifle her prospects. And she feels qualified to give others advice?

The sections focused on Morgan are written in first person so the reader has insight into her life and attitudes. Because the rest of the story is written in third person point of view, Noah, however, is a less developed character. He’s got a profession, an avocation (two, if you count that he’s a good cook), and a history, but he never comes fully alive.

In much the same way, The Halo Effect never comes fully alive until the last quarter of the book. The plot – serial killer targeting vulnerable women in particularly gruesome ways – is hardly original. The writing is sometimes awkward and amateurish and in dire need of some editing. Verb tenses are sometimes uneven, and there are some obvious grammatical errors. “The same empathetic connection had developed between Cleo and I.” There’s a lot of butterfly imagery that seems intended to be literary but functions mainly to interrupt the pacing of the plot.

This is the author’s first book in a series centering on the Butterfield Institute. If the concept of a series focusing on a sex therapy institute intrigues you, you may find The Halo Effect an acceptable story. But if you’re looking for a touching romance, this probably isn’t going to satisfy.

--Lesley Dunlap