Tough Customer

June 28, 2010
Introduced in 2009's Smash Cut, Atlanta PI Dodge Hanley makes this entertaining, if slightly talky romantic thriller from bestseller Brown a must-read for anyone who appreciates a tough guy hero with a heart of gold. Late one night Dodge receives a phone call from his lost love, Houston realtor Caroline King, who asks him to come to Texas to help catch Oren Starks, a creepy over-the-top stalker who's out to kill Dodge and Caroline's 30-year-old daughter, Berry Malone. Dodge hasn't seen Berry since the day she was born. When Starks takes a shot at Berry in Caroline's house, hitting a work associate of Berry's instead, Dodge rushes to the rescue. While Merritt County deputy sheriff Ski Nyland, who falls for the equally smitten Berry, is no slouch on the case, the relentlessly ruthless Dodge plays the most crucial role in the effort to stop the bad guy. Brown fans will want to see more of the irresistible Dodge.

July 15, 2010

A manhunt for a homicidal stalker reunites an ex-cop and his long-lost daughter, in Brown's latest thriller (Rainwater, 2009).

Private eye Dodge Hanley, who left the Houston police for Atlanta years before, is summoned back to Texas by his long-ago flame Caroline King, now a successful realtor. Caroline wants Dodge, who once rescued her from an abusive fiancé, to lend his sleuthing skills to find Oren Starks, the man who burst in on her daughter Berry and Berry's co-worker Ben at Caroline's lake house near the small town of Merritt. Shooting and wounding Ben, Oren fled, but not before vowing to murder Berry. A dismissed co-worker at the Houston marketing firm where Berry and Ben work, Oren was unhinged by his thwarted efforts to woo Berry and another colleague, Sally Buckland. Dodge (who, unbeknownst to Berry, is her father) and local deputy Ski Nyland join forces to track Oren down. Ski's call to Sally finds her strangely reluctant to corroborate her previous claim of sexual harassment against Oren, perhaps because Oren has a gun to her head during the call. Despite a leg injury sustained at Caroline's house, Oren confounds pursuers by somehow managing to be in several places at once. He breaks into a Merritt motel room, fatally wounding a teenager who surprises him there. Sally's body is found hanging in the closet of Berry's Houston home. Oren takes an elderly couple hostage in a campground, and kills again before disappearing into the Big Thicket, a treacherous, swampy national park. Brown's trademark romance spiced with raunch serves her well as she orchestrates two parallel lust stories: Caroline's and Dodge's passionate but brief encounter in 1978, and the present frisson between Berry and Dodge's younger doppelgänger, hard-boiled cop Ski. The narrative, slowed by too many talky scenes and descriptive filler, eventually rewards readers' patience with a bang-up surprise ending. 

Brown's ear for Texas dialect and her earnest characterizations of cynical lawmen with stout hearts make for an enjoyable summer read.

(COPYRIGHT (2010) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

July 1, 2010
Browns latest thriller reintroduces a character from her previous outing, Smash Cut (2009): Dodge Hanley, a grizzled investigator who used to be a cop. Dodge is awakened one morning by a call from Caroline King, a woman he hasnt seen in 30 yearssince the day their daughter, Berry, was born. Now Berry is the target of a frightening stalker who has just broken into Carolines house and shot Berrys coworker, Ben Lofland. Dodge reluctantly agrees to travel from Atlanta to Texas to help the police hunt down Berrys tormentor, the vengeful Oren Starks. The police deputy on the case, Ski Nyland, is suspicious of Berry and convinced she is hiding something. As Dodge works with Ski to track Oren, his feelings for Caroline resurface, and he recalls how they first metand the reason their torrid relationship came to an end. Though a late-in-the-game twist seems somewhat farfetched, the draw here is the appealing Dodge, a character Brown fans will have no problem rooting for.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2010, American Library Association.)

July 15, 2010

A manhunt for a homicidal stalker reunites an ex-cop and his long-lost daughter, in Brown's latest thriller (Rainwater, 2009).

Private eye Dodge Hanley, who left the Houston police for Atlanta years before, is summoned back to Texas by his long-ago flame Caroline King, now a successful realtor. Caroline wants Dodge, who once rescued her from an abusive fianc�, to lend his sleuthing skills to find Oren Starks, the man who burst in on her daughter Berry and Berry's co-worker Ben at Caroline's lake house near the small town of Merritt. Shooting and wounding Ben, Oren fled, but not before vowing to murder Berry. A dismissed co-worker at the Houston marketing firm where Berry and Ben work, Oren was unhinged by his thwarted efforts to woo Berry and another colleague, Sally Buckland. Dodge (who, unbeknownst to Berry, is her father) and local deputy Ski Nyland join forces to track Oren down. Ski's call to Sally finds her strangely reluctant to corroborate her previous claim of sexual harassment against Oren, perhaps because Oren has a gun to her head during the call. Despite a leg injury sustained at Caroline's house, Oren confounds pursuers by somehow managing to be in several places at once. He breaks into a Merritt motel room, fatally wounding a teenager who surprises him there. Sally's body is found hanging in the closet of Berry's Houston home. Oren takes an elderly couple hostage in a campground, and kills again before disappearing into the Big Thicket, a treacherous, swampy national park. Brown's trademark romance spiced with raunch serves her well as she orchestrates two parallel lust stories: Caroline's and Dodge's passionate but brief encounter in 1978, and the present frisson between Berry and Dodge's younger doppelg�nger, hard-boiled cop Ski. The narrative, slowed by too many talky scenes and descriptive filler, eventually rewards readers' patience with a bang-up surprise ending.

Brown's ear for Texas dialect and her earnest characterizations of cynical lawmen with stout hearts make for an enjoyable summer read.

(COPYRIGHT (2010) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)