Marian Engström always had a few nagging suspicions about her boyfriend Tate. Before he died suddenly, she wondered about that faraway empty look in Tate's eyes, and was puzzled by a profound lack of empathy he sometimes displayed. And then there was the time he said he found the body of a young woman who had been murdered. Did he really just find that young woman? Or was he somehow responsible for her death? Diane Les Becquets' new novel, The Last Woman in the Forest , is the story of Marian's investigation into Tate, with the help of a profiler who looks into the personal histories and patterns of serial killers. Les Becquets lives in Henniker, N.H., and she spoke with Peter Biello on The Bookshelf about her new novel. At the heart of this novel is the idea of trusting your instincts. Particularly, women trusting their instincts when it comes to men, and staying safe around men, especially men you don't know. Why was this subject -- trusting one's instincts -- so important to you? It