After the murder of a teenage girl, a mysterious man in a black leather jacket was seen lurking near the crime scene. Investigative reporter Tessa Novak has him in her sights as the culprit…That man was Julian Darcangelo—an undercover FBI agent working with the Denver police. He’s closing in on the trail of a human trafficker and killer. Tessa’s accusations could blow his cover—and he wants her off the investigation.
But just as Tessa has made Julian a target of interest, she is now a target—of the killer. And as they are forced to trust each other, their physical attraction escalates as intensely as the threat from a ruthless murderer who wants to see both of them dead…
My Review
Okay, before I launch into the problems I had with Ms. Tessa Novak let me just say I did enjoy this book. It was fast paced and kept me turning the pages. Julian was a great tortured anti-hero and I will be picking up the other books in this series however...
I hope to God none of the other heroines are going to be as dumb as Tessa Novak. How this girl is not dead or horribly maimed still remains a mystery to me. Why Julian would even waste his time trying to protect her is also beyond me.
Just to clarify Tessa witnessed the murder in gas station and promptly went to work and wrote up a front page article revealing every single detail of the crime. I don't work with the police on a daily basis like say... an investigative reporter would and even I understand why police withhold certain details from the public to help them catch the killer. Tessa however, can't really grasp the concept of police catching the bad guys and reporters reporting. I'm supposed to believe that Tessa is only out to help get these guys off the streets, protect all the other girls like the one who was murdered and it's not all about getting her big headlines but honestly, her headlines are driving the bad guys further underground and potentially exposing the identity of an undercover agent who is thisclose to catching them. How is that helping Tessa??? Please explain it to me.
On top of all that this girl is dumb. Let me just list a few of the bajillion stupid things she's done.
1. Writing a first person account of an unsolved murder for a major newspaper in Denver announcing to the bad guys that she Tessa Novak witnessed everything.
2. Assumes the murder was gang related and announces to the world in her article that she Tessa Novak witnessed the murder and will be singlehandedly tracking down the killers to see that they are arrested. Then the ninny goes waltzing into gang territory and starts asking around to talk to the head of the local Crips chapter.
3. After starting a media frenzy with the intention of getting the cops to start cracking down on gang activity Tessa slips her protective cover and goes back into gang territory to finish her interview with the Crips.
4. Even after she finds out that the killers are worse than your average gangbanger, has a man break into her apartment who molests her while she is in the bathtub, has a cop get shot by the same man after he trys to break into her apartment for a second time she still insists on evading the protective custody the police have on her and doing things no her own. Oh and perhaps I should mention her best friend ( a fellow reporter) was almost killed for trying to take a story too far in a previous book.
There are just too many issues with Tessa for me to write about them all. It's enough to say that she was a complete airhead for the majority of the book and by the time reality actually hit her in the face and she started exercising common sense it was too little too late.
Grade 6.9/10
I do have to say that I love the cover of this book.
8 comments:
Hello - and welcome to blogland!! Wendy pointed me your way - pointing out we were neighbours so to speak. I'm just down the 401 from you.
And - lol - Wendy will also agree with you about the heroine of Hard Evidence. Sufficient to say though we are buds - she helped me ever so much with The Great Western Drive after all *g*, we disagreed on this book. I liked it ever so much better then she did.
Is this your first Pamela Clare book? If so, you REALLY need to read Ride the Fire. It's a (well - what I call) a Colonial and if you liked Julian - well you will LOVE Nicholas!!
And one of the reasons I started my blog lo' these many years ago was the same reason as you. Not many of my friends reads romance - and the ones that do can't be bothered to talk about them and I love nothing more then a good ramble about romance, it was driving me NUTS!!
And since I have a good ramblings going on now - it's great to see you love a good Western too!!
Hi There.
I'm even closer than Kristie - I live in Pickering. We don't even need the 401 LOL.
I've added you to my favourites list so you'll have at least 1 regular visitor. I've only read Pamela's Unlawful Contact. I have her other romantic suspense books & Kristie talked me into Ride The Fire which I will read soon.
Have fun blogging.
Hi there! Okay... I read all three books in this series and can tell you that no, thank goodness they are not all like Tessa. ;P She seems to be an exception. I had some of the same problems you had with this heroine and a few more to boot... ie: wearing pearls, pumps and that outfit while going incognito to gangland wasn't the most brilliant of ideas, lol! Julian saved this book for me. :)
Extreme Exposure had a wonderful heroine and a hero I loved and so did Unlawful Contact. You might want to try those two for better heroine fare. :)
Kristie - Thanks again for mentioning me in your blog and for welcoming me :) I do have ride the fire in my TBR pile but it's one of those books I've heard so many good things about I'm afraid to read it. I'm weird I know - I'm going to scoot it to the top of my TBR with all 6 of the Maggie Osbornes I have yet to read... I'm hopeless.
Mary G - Thanks so much for adding me to your favourites list. I really wasn't sure if anyone would ever read my blog so this is very exciting for me :) I grew up in Pickering and loved it there and was hoping to move back when my husband and I started looking at houses but we ended up in the 'shwa. However, I must say there are some very nice areas of Oshawa despite our bad reputation ;)
Hilcia - I'm so glad to hear that. I really did enjoy the book with the exception of Tessa. I haven't picked up the others yet but now I'm motivated to get them again. I think I must have mentally erased the pearls and pumps as I was reading in an effort to finish the book without damaging my walls :)
Thanks for visiting!
You were ever so much nicer than me when it came to this book. Some of my favorites that you didn't mention? The heroine notices the killer is wearing a leather jacket so when the hero arrives on the scene wearing a leather jacket....he MUST be the killer! ::headsmack::
Given the fact that both hero and heroine had horrific childhoods I was pretty pissed off that they didn't use condoms during the sex scene. Then the heroine muses afterwards that "oh well if she's pregnant she'll always have a part of the hero." OMG - shoot me now.
And the identity of the villain. I don't want to spoil it for anybody but needless to say it set off one of my Big Ol' Feminist hot buttons.
BUT - I do encourage you to read Ride The Fire. It's one of Clare's historicals, and it's very, very good. I didn't love it as much as Kristie, but it was a solid B+ for me.
I know what you mean. I sat on Highland Rebel by Judith James for months after reading Broken Wing and my reaction to it. I'm reading HR now - and well, I was a silly girl to wait *g*
Okay, I can see where the heroine was a big dummy, but even that being the case, I still loved this story. Julian was to DIE FOR!! Plus, the writing is very strong. Welcome to blogland! I hope you stick around and it looks like we have lots in common :)
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