DANGER IN THE TULIP FIELDS

A romantic thriller set against a post-9/11 political backdrop.

Beginning with a literal bang, Amanda Noble’s story opens with a blast from a car bomb in Kabul. As a dedicated field reporter, investigating women’s hospitals in Afghanistan, she is shaken, but not broken. The first thing she sees when the dust settles is a blue-eyed hunk named Jeffrey Sunderman. He picks her up and brings her to safety–it’s apparent from the rosy prose that Amanda is already completely and irretrievably lost in love. The narrative plays coy for a few pages but rather impetuously gets the lovers together, despite some stock protests from Amanda. Jeffrey, besides being superstudly, is also mysterious. Though he admits to being in Special Forces, his exact activities in the Middle East are unclear. The couple enjoys a short and sweet period together back in New York City, but their mutually demanding careers pull them apart more than once. Amanda, dedicated as ever, takes a position as anchor woman for a major network, and Jeffery disappears, presumably operating in the more shadowy realms of geopolitics. Tortuously, Amanda decides to move on with her romantic life. Enter Pierre Roget, a French diplomat and born womanizer. Incessantly pursued by Pierre, Amanda relents and marries the lavishly handsome Frenchman. Their wedding becomes gossip fodder, and the newlyweds labor to function under constant media scrutiny. There is less intrigue in the novel than readers will expect, given the high-octane opening, but when Amanda returns to the front after the dissatisfactions of domestic life take their toll, the narrative heats up again. Bengen’s prose is best when rendering moments of kinesis and passion, though some of the action is a bit protracted in the middle of the novel. The conclusion isn’t particularly surprising but satisfies eventually. Who wants love to go unrequited anyway?

A passionate and happily improbable romance.