Date published: August 2010
ISBN: 978-0-446-54202-9
Romantic Suspense
Mass Market Paperback
Reviewed by Gina
Obtained via Publisher
Totally independent, Army brat, Tyler Hudson is an A-TAC demolitions expert. Surprised to be called into a simple military transport of detonators, Tyler follows her instructions and heads west on her mission. What starts as an easy assignment takes a disturbing turn when she and her escort come upon a broken down motorcycle, damaged guard rail and no body. More disturbing, however, is a blue scarf floating on a tree. Disturbing because of its symbolism to Tyler. The mission turns south when the transport team is ambushed and Tyler left for dead. Rather than look to Tyler for answers, she is maligned and there is an undercurrent of accusation that she was behind the massacre. Relieved to be out of the debrief yet distraught over the day's events Tyler seeks solace in a drink. But it isn't alcohol that soothes her, it is MI-5 agent, Owen Wakefield who beds her with a passion Tyler never imagined. Content to leave Owen behind as a memory of an intense one night stand, Tyler is stunned to find Owen assigned to the A-TAC team.
When a string of incidents that began with a few computer glitches, moving to Tyler's weapons being tampered with, escalate to include the deaths of several people close to her, fingers start to point at Tyler. Being a suspect doesn't bother her so much because she believes in her team. Rather it is betrayal from Owen that devastates the otherwise together woman. Will Owen be her savior or demise?
I had the same problems with Dee Davis' DESPERATE DEEDS that I often find with the third book of a series. For some reason, strong story telling gets, for a better word, sloppy. I've puzzled as to whether the author is under a deadline, or gotten bored with the series, or there is a feeling that readers are hooked so it's okay to drop the ball on some otherwise easily done research. While DESPERATE DEEDS delves into some of modern society's struggles like coping with an aging parent and especially a parent with Alzheimer's, in some ways it merely skims the surface. If Tyler is a child of a first or early marriage, and there have been a number of step-mothers in between, how can she be so close in age to her step-brother, Mark? I struggled to put Tyler and her father's ages in perspective because she refers to him as "so old" yet it appears he was recently retired. Individuals with Alzheimer's have good days and bad – days where the individual knows nothing and days when they are completely lucid. Yet in the book it seemed to be a vehicle to get Tyler where she needed to be. A quick call to a local coroner's office would tell an author whether the way a body looks at death would be accurate or not.
I didn't feel the camaraderie in the team that I felt in the earlier books.
Still, it is an action packed story with some interesting twists. After thoroughly enjoying DANGEROUS DESIRES, book 2 in this series I know Ms. Davis can entertain with a white knuckle story. If this series continues I know I will be picking up the remaining books and finding out just what is behind the team's greatest mission.
THIS IS NOT AN ENDORSEMENT OF THIS BOOK. THIS IS AN OBJECTIVE UNBIASED REVIEW.
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