Hot Target by Suzanne Brockmann

Narrated by Melanie Ewbank and Patrick Lawlor

In Book 6 of the Troubleshooter series, Gone Too Far, Navy SEAL leader Tom Paoletti originates the concept of a private security firm employing former SEALs and other operatives, when his own military career comes to an abrupt end, even though he’s cleared of treason. Book 7, Flashpoint, Brockmann changes the series up a lot – Troubleshooters, Inc., is now in operation, with practically all new characters being sent to Kazbekistan on a terrorist-elimination project, and the World War II alternate storyline used in Books 1-6 is gone. More of the regulars come back into the fold in Hot Target, when a Hollywood movie studio hires the Troubleshooters team to protect producer J. Mercedes Chadwick, who has been receiving death threats. The FBI is also called in because the MO is strikingly similar to another incident that ended in tragedy, and a local neo-Nazi cell , the Freedom Network, is blamed.

Cosmo Richter is in the Los Angeles area, on extended leave from the SEAL team, while he helps his mother recuperate from injury. He picks up the “babysitting” job from Paoletti as a way to get out of the house. He wasn’t expecting to be so infuriated by and so attracted to Mercedes (AKA Jane), the young, brash producer filming a World War II movie featuring two gay men as the heroes. Something Jane doesn’t know about Cosmo: his adoptive father was gay, and he’s a card-carrying member of PFLAG (Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays), whereas she assumes he’s a stereotypical alpha military homophobe.

FBI agent Jules Cassidy plays a large role in this, the book where Jules meets Robin Chadwick, Jane Chadwick’s younger half-brother who is also the star of the movie. Robin struggles in general with life – he’s an angelic and charming and handsome young man and talented actor, as well as a man-whore and an alcoholic. Jules’ former lover Adam reappears in Jules’ life mainly to use his connection to Jane to get the job playing Robin’s on-screen lover.

The book uses all the different POVs to really examine 360 degrees of attitudes toward homosexuality – Jane’s intern is decidedly homophobic, albeit young and laughably naive; the Freedom Network seems to be threatening to shut down the movie to prevent Jane outing one of the men on whom the story is based; all this contrasts to Cosmo’s open acceptance of the entire spectrum of sexuality, as well as the attitudes of the openly gay characters of Jules, Adam, and Hal, the real-life man being played by Robin.

It’s suspenseful, it’s entertaining, but I have one major beef with this story: I hated the heroine Jane. Seriously, she is the worst Brockmann heroine of the series. This is a trope I just despise: the young, reckless heroine in a book populated with trained Navy SEALs and FBI agents, who thinks she knows best, is braver and smarter than they, and can outmaneuver them. Right – because a 26-year-old woman with no self-defense training at all can go up against a terrorist, and can protect SEALs? With what, a movie prop gun? It’s not like she even knows how to fire a gun. I wanted to bitch-slap her about every 30 pages or so. But – if you can get past the TSTL heroine (and I did), it’s another great entry in the series, with kickass characters – like Tess Bailey, who IS a trained female operative – and heart-stopping action, as well as heart-wrenching grief and a heart-warming ending (where I no longer felt the need to slap Jane).

The first six books in the series were recently rerecorded by the narration team of Patrick Lawlor and Melanie Ewbank, mainly because they narrated Books 7 – 11 so successfully together (and because the original narrations were not as good). The difference between the recordings is marked – and by that I mean, the difference in Melanie Ewbank’s pacing in Books 1-6 as compared to Books 7 and 8. I found Ewbank in Book 1 so agonizingly slow that I speeded her sections up 1.25x; the next books were slightly peppier, but still I found Ewbank’s narration too deliberate, too ploddingly slow, compared to Lawlor’s perfect rendition. In Hot Target (originally recorded around when the book was released in 2005), Ewbank’s delivery is practically manic by comparison – thank goodness! Her delivery is so much better suited to the material in this book, and so much better matches Lawlor in style. Lawlor is more consistent throughout the entire series – he creates wonderful characters, and his pacing increases the urgency and excitement of the action as it picks up. His female characters are easily identifiable and differentiated without ever needing to place them in a falsetto range. OK, I forgive them for pronouncing FBI Agent Max Bhagat as Baguette (I swear they say BhaGAT in later books, don’t they?). It is jarring when a name is pronounced differently in the same series!

All in all, Troubleshooters is one of my favorites series – and Lawlor and Ewbank do it justice. For fans of contemporary romantic suspense, this is a definite must-listen. Brockmann really knows how to spin a tale that has you on the edge of your seat, with compelling characters and a convincing plot, and Ewbank and Lawlor enhance the experience.

[section label=’Audiobook Information’ anchor=’Audiobook Information’]

Melinda

AUDIOBOOK INFORMATION

TITLE: Hot Target

AUTHOR: Suzanne Brockmann

NARRATED BY: Melanie Ewbank and Patrick Lawlor

GENRE: Romantic Suspense

STEAM FACTOR: Glad I had my earbuds in

REVIEWER: Melinda [button type=’link’ link=’http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00R6SFZU4/?tag=audiogalsnet-20′ size=’btn-lg’ variation=’btn-default’ target=’blank’]Buy Hot Target by Suzanne Brockmann on Amazon[/button]