This intense, erotic romance pairs brisk action with well-developed characters.
An undercover policewoman falls for the criminal assigned to protect her in a taut romantic thriller by author Bailey (Staking His Claim, 2014, etc.).
Seraphina Newsom, a former nurse, has wanted to be a cop since childhood. After the death of her brother, rookie cop Colin, at the hands of crime boss Trevor Hogan, she’s determined to avenge him—without official sanction from the New York Police Department. Working as a waitress (and not a very good one) at Hogan’s nightclub, Rush, she hopes to find an incriminating ledger that will put him in prison. Sera’s uncle, Police Commissioner Newsom, knows Sera has gone rogue and offers a deal, which might be construed as blackmail, to criminal Bowen Driscol to protect his niece and free her from Hogan’s clutches. From their first meeting, Sera and Bowen are immediately hot for each other, and he quickly stakes his claim, nicknaming her “Ladybug.” Sera, a practicing Catholic and a virgin, lusts for Bowen despite his reputation (she knows nothing of his arrangement with the NYPD), and she finds herself doing things that good girls don’t usually do. The pair even attends church together, a place Bowen seldom visits; but in Sera’s presence, he is called to be a better man. The two bond at Bowen’s apartment (he paints murals) and fall into a steamy, but respectful, affair. An element of distrust lingers—she knows he’s a criminal—even when Bowen proves to be reliable. After overhearing talk about a shipment of stolen goods, Sera is a marked woman, and the line believably blurs between good guys and bad. It’s a well-conceived setup, with virginal Sera a counterpoint to rough and raw Bowen, who craves her so much he’s in pain. The structure might be described as formulaic, but the dynamic between the two main characters is so well-developed as to make any formulaic elements nearly indiscernible. Although it appears a sequel is in the works, thankfully the author doesn’t leave the reader hanging but sufficiently resolves the current plotline while sparking interest in the novel to come.
This intense, erotic romance pairs brisk action with well-developed characters.Pub Date: Jan. 27, 2015
ISBN: 978-1622665648
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Entangled: Select
Review Posted Online: Jan. 8, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
An undisciplined but powerfully lacerating story, by an author who knows every block of the neighborhood and every hair on...
After five adventures for Boston shamus Patrick Kenzie and his off-again lover Angela Gennaro (Prayers for Rain, 1999, etc.), Lehane tries his hand at a crossover novel that’s as dark as any of Patrick’s cases.
Even the 1975 prologue is bleak. Sean Devine and Jimmy Marcus are playing, or fighting, outside Sean’s parents’ house in the Point neighborhood of East Buckingham when a car pulls up, one of the two men inside flashes a badge, and Sean and Jimmy’s friend Dave Boyle gets bundled inside, allegedly to be driven home to his mother for a scolding but actually to get kidnapped. Though Dave escapes after a few days, he never really outlives his ordeal, and 25 years later it’s Jimmy’s turn to join him in hell when his daughter Katie is shot and beaten to death in the wilds of Pen Park, and State Trooper Sean, just returned from suspension, gets assigned to the case. Sean knows that both Dave and Jimmy have been in more than their share of trouble in the past. And he’s got an especially close eye on Jimmy, whose marriage brought him close to the aptly named Savage family and who’s done hard time for robbery. It would be just like Jimmy, Sean knows, to ignore his friend’s official efforts and go after the killer himself. But Sean would be a lot more worried if he knew what Dave’s wife Celeste knows: that hours after catching sight of Katie in the last bar she visited on the night of her death, Dave staggered home covered with somebody else’s blood. Burrowing deep into his three sorry heroes and the hundred ties that bind them unbearably close, Lehane weaves such a spellbinding tale that it’s easy to overlook the ramshackle mystery behind it all.
An undisciplined but powerfully lacerating story, by an author who knows every block of the neighborhood and every hair on his characters’ heads.Pub Date: Jan. 30, 2001
ISBN: 0-688-16316-5
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2000
This ran in the S.E.P. and resulted in more demands for the story in book form than ever recorded. Well, here it is and it is a honey. Imagine ten people, not knowing each other, not knowing why they were invited on a certain island house-party, not knowing their hosts. Then imagine them dead, one by one, until none remained alive, nor any clue to the murderer. Grand suspense, a unique trick, expertly handled.
Pub Date: Feb. 21, 1939
ISBN: 0062073478
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Dodd, Mead
Review Posted Online: Sept. 20, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1939
SEEN & HEARD
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