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.
