An overstuffed melodrama that’s all bark and not much bite.
It’s sink or swim when two troubled, love-struck Cincinnati FBI agents dive headfirst into the choppy waters of a drug and child-pornography ring.
Special Agent Griffin “Decker” Davenport is in a coma after he was shot during an undercover sting of human traffickers, and Special Agent Kate Coppola, new to Cincinnati, has been sitting by his side. Sparks between the two fly as soon as he wakes up, and, along with a large team of investigators, they’re on the cusp of blowing a human (specifically children) trafficking ring wide open. Meanwhile, 18-year-old Mallory Martin dreams of escape from the monster that has kept her prisoner and who, when she was only 12, dubbed her Sunshine Suzie, forcing her to “perform” in porn films. There’s only one problem: her 9-year-old sister, Macy. The drug dealer and pornographer who calls himself the Professor warns Mallory that if she tries to escape, he’ll make sure Macy will be forced to do the same things as Mallory, and Mallory would rather die than see that happen. Agents Coppola and Davenport, along with a giant cast of characters, sift through the many (many) clues while the Professor, with the authorities closing in, starts tying up loose ends, including Agent Davenport. Rose (Alone in the Dark, 2016, etc.) explores the dark subject matter with sensitivity, but Kate and Decker’s love-at-first-sight attraction, though steamy, often descends into the silly: Decker frequently gets aroused by Kate just walking into the room. However, kudos should be given for a valiant attempt to round out so many characters. Long stretches of dialogue punctuated by mild action do not make a thrilling read, and new readers will be lost, but fans of the Cincinnati series will probably be happy to see the return of favorite characters. Even a truly vile bad guy can’t give this thriller a jolt.
An overstuffed melodrama that’s all bark and not much bite.Pub Date: Feb. 7, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-399-58306-3
Page Count: 640
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: Nov. 21, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2016
Irritatingly trite woman-in-periler from lawyer-turned-novelist Baldacci. Moving away from the White House and the white-shoe Washington law firms of his previous bestsellers (Absolute Power, 1996; Total Control, 1997), Baldacci comes up with LuAnn Tyler, a spunky, impossibly beautiful, white-trash truck stop waitress with a no-good husband and a terminally cute infant daughter in tow. Some months after the birth of Lisa, LuAnn gets a phone call summoning her to a make-shift office in an unrented storefront of the local shopping mall. There, she gets a Faustian offer from a Mr. Jackson, a monomaniacal, cross-dressing manipulator who apparently knows the winning numbers in the national lottery before the numbers are drawn. It seems that LuAnn fits the media profile of what a lottery winner should be—poor, undereducated but proud—and if she's willing to buy the right ticket at the right time and transfer most of her winnings to Jackson, she'll be able to retire in luxury. Jackson fails to inform her, however, that if she refuses his offer, he'll have her killed. Before that can happen, as luck would have it, LuAnn barely escapes death when one of husband Duane's drug deals goes bad. She hops on a first-class Amtrak sleeper to Manhattan with a hired executioner in pursuit. But executioner Charlie, one of Jackson's paid handlers, can't help but hear wedding bells when he sees LuAnn cooing with her daughter. Alas, a winning $100- million lottery drawing complicates things. Jackson spirits LuAnn and Lisa away to Sweden, with Charlie in pursuit. Never fear. Not only will LuAnn escape a series of increasingly violent predicaments, but she'll also outwit Jackson, pay an enormous tax bill to the IRS, and have enough left over to honeymoon in Switzerland. Too preposterous to work as feminine wish-fulfillment, too formulaic to be suspenseful. (Book-of-the-Month Club main selection)
Pub Date: Dec. 2, 1997
ISBN: 0-446-52259-7
Page Count: 528
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1997
Heartfelt and funny, this enemies-to-lovers romance shows that the best things in life are all-inclusive and nontransferable...
An unlucky woman finally gets lucky in love on an all-expenses-paid trip to Hawaii.
From getting her hand stuck in a claw machine at age 6 to losing her job, Olive Torres has never felt that luck was on her side. But her fortune changes when she scores a free vacation after her identical twin sister and new brother-in-law get food poisoning at their wedding buffet and are too sick to go on their honeymoon. The only catch is that she’ll have to share the honeymoon suite with her least favorite person—Ethan Thomas, the brother of the groom. To make matters worse, Olive’s new boss and Ethan’s ex-girlfriend show up in Hawaii, forcing them both to pretend to be newlyweds so they don’t blow their cover, as their all-inclusive vacation package is nontransferable and in her sister’s name. Plus, Ethan really wants to save face in front of his ex. The story is told almost exclusively from Olive’s point of view, filtering all communication through her cynical lens until Ethan can win her over (and finally have his say in the epilogue). To get to the happily-ever-after, Ethan doesn’t have to prove to Olive that he can be a better man, only that he was never the jerk she thought he was—for instance, when she thought he was judging her for eating cheese curds, maybe he was actually thinking of asking her out. Blending witty banter with healthy adult communication, the fake newlyweds have real chemistry as they talk it out over snorkeling trips, couples massages, and a few too many tropical drinks to get to the truth—that they’re crazy about each other.
Heartfelt and funny, this enemies-to-lovers romance shows that the best things in life are all-inclusive and nontransferable as well as free.Pub Date: May 14, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5011-2803-5
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: March 2, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2019
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