IF THE DEVIL HAD A DOG

A woman on the run from her husband seeks refuge in a small Texas town with a former Marine in Lukas’ romantic thriller.

Thirty-four-year-old Sidney McQueen is leaving the city of Fort Worth, along with her horse, Mocha, whom she transports in a trailer attached to the back of her truck. She’s on the run from her husband, Winston, and journeys to Alpine, Texas, where her friend, Trevor Nolan, told her she would find a safe place to hide. That place is with Trevor’s friend, Markus Yeager, a former Marine who knows nothing about her current circumstances. When Markus runs a background check on Sidney, he learns that Winston is “involved in south of the border pharmaceuticals,” and that Sidney has other aliases. In flashbacks to Sidney’s time in Fort Worth, readers discover that Winston was abusive and pressured Sidney into marriage; before leaving him, she saw evidence of Winston’s ties to a Mexican drug cartel and uncovers a file that he was keeping on her, focused entirely on her and her history. Later, after hearing that her divorce attorney was murdered, Sidney and Markus take protective measures, but it doesn’t take long before one of Winston’s colleagues finds Sidney’s location. As Sidney faces with a struggle to survive, she and Markus connect on a deeper level. Over the course of this novel, Lukas does an excellent job of blending genres in a story that’s part romance, part domestic thriller, and part actioner. The various elements intertwine seamlessly, and the author does a particularly engaging job of slowly revealing Markus’ past trauma. However, some of the prose and dialogue can feel a bit hackneyed (“I’m fighting a different enemy—one in my own backyard”; “I want to be with you, as long as you promise to love me for the remainder of all our Decembers”). Still, the main characters communicate refreshingly well with each other, for the most part. The plot is somewhat formulaic, but it’s nicely paced and rounded out with a cast of fine secondary characters.

An often enjoyable suspense novel, despite some awkward passages.