This book was better than a lot of DPs because the hero knew he was a jerk. I liked the realisim of him having been obsessed with another woman even after having met the heroine. I liked that he knew he'd done the heroine wrong and that it had caused him guilt for years.

But there were what I'd call "cloudy factoids."

At one point the hero states that women had turned him down before because of his size and that is why he had torn the heroine on their wedding night years ago. So I was expecting some discussion of it when they hit the sack this time around. But nope.

The hero's 2nd wife Maureen (the woman he had been obsessed with) had convinced him he was sterile. And he just bought it. Never went to see a doctor. What kind of idiot was he? They had only been married 2 years. That's a short period of time to give up on your fertility.

The time line was hazy. A lot happend in the 7 years they were apart. He went straight from her to Maureen. They were together 2 years then separated for 3 years. So they had only been divorced for 2 years. Yet the hero kept saying he'd been divorced for years and words like that. I guess 2 is actually plural but usually a person would say he'd been divorced a couple of years not for years.

The hero had lost his arm. It was sometime during the years he was separated from Maureen. 2 things here. His daughter by the heroine, Sarina, has visions and had seen it happen. So she was what 2 or 3? And was lucid enough to remember it? And all the other visions she's had of him over the years? Not buying it. Second he states that he hasn't even tried to sleep with anyone since the accident and hadn't seen Maureen except maybe for the divorce. I can't remember exactly. But later when Sarina sees him with his prosthetic off he thinks she is revolted as Maureen had been, implying that he'd had his shirt off in front of Maureen.

When she was 9 months pregnant and broke and ill Sarina had called him to ask for help and Maureen had said that Colby said that he didn't believe her and wouldn't help her and never call him again. Later in the book they are talking and have discovered that Maureen had made that up. That Colby had been in Africa at the time and never knew she called. But that was just now, all along for those years Sarina had thought that he had really rejected her plea for help. So they have this little conversation.

"Have you thought about how it might have been if Maureen hadn't deliberately ignored your call for help?" he said. She replies "I did, occasionally. I couldn't help wondering what you would have done." WTF? No she didn't wonder. That was the point. In all these years she didn't wonder because she knew/believed that Colby had told Maureen to say those things. No wondering needed. So when exactly did you do that wondering? If the author meant in the last 2 days since she found out then there should have been a scene where she wondered.

Those are just a few examples of the cloudy writing going on.

Still the first half of the book wasn't bad. The second half wasn't as good. It was littered with characters from other books in the series. One or two would have been okay but there were probably 10 to 15 other men who had or who obviously were going to have stories of their own. And the mystery suspense element was the haziest of all. It was like smoke and mirrors. It all seemed like it was written with exclamation points in order to keep you from noticing that it didn't make a lot of sense. I've read a few other books in the series so I did have a vague notion of what was going on. Still it was totally non riveting or suspensful.

There were a lot of people keeping secrets from the hero who was working at a new job as chief of security for a company involved in all this drug running brou ha ha. The owner of the company and others. That made no sense at all. If you want him to catch the bad guys you tell him what all is going on.

And then he discovers that Sarina is working undercover for the DEA and blows a gasket and decides not to tell her he loves her and decides not to clear up a misunderstanding about him and another woman naked in his apartment even though a paragraph earlier he'd been dieing to have her know he hadn't cheated on her. That's grown up of him.

So decent in that the hero wasn't a cold hearted ass. Lots of potential, hazy follow through. If you're a fan you'll like it. ( )

Colby Lane lost part of his arm, but finally managed to kick the bottle. Now he's working corporate security in an oil company with problems. When he unexpectedly encounters the ex-wife he married and left in less than 24 hours is also working there, things get complicated. Fast.

For Sarina Carrington, keeping secrets is nothing new, but the complications she's facing here may get someone killed. Her six-year-old, fatherless daughter and her undercover work for the DEA...

A convoluted plot involving undercover operatives, hidden drugs, secretive pasts and visions... not Palmer's best. There's too much going on, and too much name dropping from past (and future) books. ( )