One Summer » (~)

He was pure, unadulterated trouble.  Johnny Harris is home again, his too-tight jeans and damn-your-eyes belligerence honed to perfection by a ten-year stretch in federal prison for murder.  Now he's out on parole and ready for the job Rachel Grant has promised to help him begin a new life.  Unlike the rest of the town, Rachel has always believed in her former student's innocence.  But one thing has changed...

The sullenly handsome boy she remembers is still sullen, still handsome...but no longer a boy.  And now the small Kentucky town is alive with gossip and whispers of a scandal, as friendship turns to passion and Rachel abandons a lifetime of propriety in the ex-con's arms.  Then the killer strikes again. All evidence points to Johnny Harris, but Rachel knows he is innocent.  And she knows she is next...as a shattering truth is uncovered and dark passions explode in the relentless summer heat.

Publishers Weekly

Robards ( Nobody's Angel ) here mixes suspense with romance, with uneven results. Teacher Rachel Grant, the daughter of a prominent family, agrees to give a former student a job when he gets out of prison after serving 11 years on a murder conviction. Rachel has always believed that Johnny Harris did not kill the girl he was dating, but everyone else in their small Kentucky town thinks otherwise. Johnny liberates Rachel from her well-planned but lonely life, and their mutual attraction grows into a relationship between soul mates, scandalizing the townspeople. When another girlfriend of Johnny's turns up dead, Rachel staunchly defends him and searches for the real murderer; her loyalty allows Johnny to escape the past and begin his life again. Though Robards provides an entertaining read about romantic renewals, several elements combine to make the plot seem farfetched. Johnny's transformation from hoodlum to law student is too rapid, the identity and motive of the true murderer seem implausible, and characters are too sketchily developed to make their motivations credible. (Feb.)