Author: katenepveu

My Suzanne Brockmann binge is over for the moment with Force of Nature, the most recent hardcover in her Troubleshooters series and the reason I went on this binge in the first place. (Well, okay, one of the reasons. The other is the sequel, which will be out at the end of the month.) More specifically, I wanted to read Force of Nature because it moves forward the romantic arc of one of my favorite characters, FBI agent Jules Cassidy. Who is gay, making this not exactly standard fare in the romantic suspense subgenre.

That arc is braided into two others: a suspense plot involving a mobster who may have terrorist ties, and a romance between characters who unwillingly get involved with the mobster. These are basically fine, though I have nitpicks about both. (A suspense subplot is dropped rather abruptly, and one of the romance conflicts drops out of the sky, instead of being present in the character’s point-of-view throughout as it should.) Oh, and the whole “resolving romantic conflicts upon thinking you are going to die/the other person is dead” thing, while a natural fit for romantic suspense, is getting a bit repetitive.

I was pleasantly surprised that this book didn’t have any show-stopping speeches about tolerance or other such Important Messages; it’s not shy about taking positions on such matters, but seems to integrate them somewhat better into the flow of the story. And despite my quibbles, the book has good forward momentum and is a fun read. But in the end, I have to admit that I might very well read about Jules doing his laundry or reading the paper, so I’m not really objective.

No Comments

More catching up with Suzanne Brockmann’s Troubleshooters series. I don’t have much to add to my initial comments about Hot Target, except that I was more interested in the principal relationship thread this time around. It’s still not as engaging as Jules’ secondary thread, but I didn’t want to skip over it.

Oh, and it does contain most of the characters introduced in Flashpoint, but in a low-key enough way that I’d completely forgotten them in the interim.

The next book in the series, Breaking Point, is new to me. It’s similar to Gone Too Far in that it’s the culmination of a long-running relationship arc that I ended up enjoying more than I expected. Yes, Max and Gina are angst puppets, but I like Max a lot more than Sam. And while his issues are the obstacle to their relationship, they are revealed to be more complex than his inability to get past her rape.

The external plot seems rather elaborate and did not really come in focus for me, but possibly this is because it’s mostly about another set of characters, Molly and Grady, who I’m indifferent to. However, it serves the purpose of pushing forward the relationships—including the friendship of Jules and Max, which I particularly enjoyed seeing.

No Comments

Flashpoint starts a new arc in Suzanne Brockmann’s Troubleshooters series, focusing on all-new characters and the new civilian team created as a result of the prior two books. It has no World War II content whatsoever and is substantially shorter than its immediate predecessors. After an earthquake in an Afghanistan-analogue, a covert five-person team heads in to recover a MacGuffin. Two of them, Tess and Nash, are forced to pretend to be married, and of course they just happen to have unresolved relationship issues. Meanwhile, they cross paths with another new character, Sofia, who is escaping from sexual torture at the hands of the local warlord.

Oracne and I were just discussing, in comments to the Into the Storm post, the allocation of Giant Angst between the men and women in this series, and this book definitely felt to me like the men had a disproportionate share. In the principal relationship thread, it seems like Tess’s role is basically to stand around while Nash wrestles with his Giant Angst. I didn’t find this thread satisfactory, and then I realized at least one reason why: it isn’t complete. There’s absolutely no way to tell that from this book—which is another problem—but some unresolved problem is hinted at in Into the Storm, which I hadn’t registered at the time because I didn’t know the characters.

Sophia also strikes me as problematic in terms of Giant Angst, though partly I’m judging her by (1) her appearance in Into the Storm and (2) her functional resemblance to Gina Vitagliano, another character with a long arc that started in traumatic sexual violence. Sophia is brave and tough and manages to rescue herself pretty well in this book. However, what I’ve seen of both her and Gina’s subsequent arcs—and I haven’t completed them—strike me as taking their Giant Angst, of trauma to be overcome, and making it instead their would-be lovers’ Giant Angst, as an obstacle that they can’t get past even though the women already have. And I am uncomfortable with this shift, together with the extended focus on the trauma.

As I said, though, I haven’t finished either of these arcs—indeed, Sophia’s arc isn’t finished yet—so perhaps my concerns will be addressed. However, it was another thing about this book that left me feeling mildly grumpy. But even though Brockmann’s relationships are hit-or-miss for me, I still want to find out what happens next . . .

No Comments

After reading Into the Storm, I discovered that Suzanne Brockmann’s current and forthcoming books feature one of my favorite characters. This gave me the motivation to start catching up on the rest of the series.

Actually I’d read Into the Night, the next un-logged book, some months ago. However, it seemed to be closely linked to the following book, Gone Too Far, and so I thought I’d wait to log them together. Except that I wasn’t impressed by Into the Night, or looking forward to Gone Too Far, so they languished, neglected.

I wasn’t impressed by Into the Night for a couple of reasons. First, the book felt over-stuffed: it had a principal relationship thread, a WWII thread, a secondary thread involving several relationships, and a terrorist plot that extended into the next book. Second, the characters in the principal relationship thread didn’t click for me. Instead of finding Mike Muldoon multi-faceted and sympathic, I felt as though he were a character designed to prove a point: look, men can dislike being treated as sexual objects, too! And Joan DaCosta’s humor came across in text as brittle instead of self-deprecating. It’s possible that they would have read differently to me on a re-read, but the idea felt like homework, and I did enough of that this summer thanks to Worldcon.

Instead, I went to Gone Too Far, which I had been reluctant to read. Not only was it was another thick book which I expected to be overstuffed, but it focused on Sam Starrett and Alyssa Locke. I disliked Sam upon his introduction in the first Troubleshooters book, and hadn’t really warmed up to him in the intervening books. And I was tired of Sam and Alyssa’s angst-puppets status.

This turned out to be more enjoyable than I expected. The WWII material is pushed far to the background; in its place is Sam’s backstory. While I thought making him an abused child was a cheap way to give him depth and make him sympathetic, his present-day growth means that he no longer grates on my nerves. Further, I’d expected the development of Sam and Alyssa’s relationship to be rather perfunctory, since it had stalled for external reasons only; but there was a satisfactory progression between the two of them as well. And I liked the material than spans the two books, the terrorist plot and the redemption of Mary Lou. It’s still quite a long book, but I didn’t feel it dragged as its predecessor did.

The next book focuses on new characters, which would be good except I’m pretty sure they include yet another set of angst puppets who featured heavily in Into the Storm. Oh well, at least it’s shorter.

No Comments

Suzanne Brockmann’s Into the Storm is the tenth book in her Troubleshooters series and the most recent paperback. It jumped the queue thanks to Oracne’s LiveJournal post discussing its treatment of race and gender.

As much as I appreciated the existence of Lindsey, a main character of Japanese descent who hates being stereotyped, I thought her big speech on the topic had distracting “This Is A Message” signs flashing all over it. But then, this is a known issue; I had the same reaction to a big speech against homophobia in Hot Target. I certainly agree with Brockmann and don’t doubt her sincerity, I just find these little speeches jarring. They do, however, pass quickly.

My larger problem with this book was Lindsey’s emotional problems, which drive the relationship-related plot. (A serial killer drives the suspense-related plot.) They come up so fast and with such little buildup, that at first I thought the other main character, Mark, was being an overly-confident jerk for telling her that she had such problems. Nope, not the case. And it bugged me a bit that the conflicts weren’t more balanced, that there wasn’t more focusing on Mark.

But I like Lindsey and Mark, so the relationship-related plot isn’t a total loss. And the serial killer plot is creepy and effective, if perhaps slightly over-the-top, and does a nice job of developing a new character and expanding an existing supporting character. Post-vacation, I’ve been looking for fairly light yet absorbing books, and even with my quibbles, this fit the bill well.

3 Comments