Wendy the Super Librarian‘s review of Night Moves by HelenKay Dimon
Romantic suspense released by Harlequin Intrigue 08 Jun 2010

People who knock category romance tend to focus an awful lot on the word counts.  Stories apparently can’t be any good if they have small word counts, and the evil masterminds at Harlequin institute those word counts with the sole purpose of hamstringing authors ::eye roll::.  To which I say horse hooey.  Instead of fighting the word count, and looking at it as an excuse, the focus should be on authors who can deliver the goods while adhering to the format.  Authors who embrace it.  Oh, like say, HelenKay Dimon, whose second title for Harlequin Intrigue reads like it sprang from the pen of a seasoned category romance pro.

Dr. Maura Lindsey has always been a bit of a brainiac freak.  By her mid-teens she was in college, and now she’s conducting research with one of her personal idols.  However when the lab where she works literally blows up, and she sees her boss getting hustled into a dark SUV by two hired goons, she knows she’s in serious trouble.  Someone just tried to kill her!  And to top it off, it appears her boss was fudging around with their research findings.  She’s smart enough to know she needs help, which means turning to the one man she has a complicated, and embarrassing, past with.

Liam Anderson is a former undercover cop who left the force in disgrace and opened up his own private security firm.  He’s just spent time consoling his BFF, Dan Lindsey, who has gotten word that his baby sister, Maura, is dead.  After their shared embarrassing moment, Maura and Liam had done their best to avoid each other.  He had his life, and she buried herself in her career.  But that doesn’t mean Liam is unaffected by her “death.”  Then he arrives home to find the dead woman very much undead and lurking around his back yard.  Someone tried to kill her, she’s being set up to take the fall for the lab explosion, and hired goons are now after her.  Liam has no choice.  He can’t very well turn her out.  Nope, they’re going to work together to get the bottom of the whole sordid mess.

Night Moves is the kind of book that once you start it, you don’t put it down.  The action starts in the first chapter and keeps up a relentless pace until the finish line.  The author embraces the short format and essentially delivers a non-stop, fast-paced thriller, with no down time, no filler chapters, like an action movie using the written word instead of film.  The author also doesn’t make the mistake of keeping too much of her suspense thread under wraps.  She lays out enough bread crumbs to snag the reader, so that we sort of know what is going on, but we don’t have all the pieces in hand.  She holds just enough back to keep us flipping through the pages, keeping up with the frantic pace to the finish line.

The romance here isn’t quite as splashy as the suspense and action sequences, but it still works.  Intrigues are really tricky to write because the authors need to deliver on two fronts (suspense and romance).  A lot of times, it’s more believable when the characters already have a shared past and aren’t meeting each other “cold” in Chapter One.  That’s what Dimon does here.  Liam and Maura already know each other, so it allows the reader to jump right into their romance without missing a beat.  I also greatly appreciated that we get two intelligent characters who, because of their shared past and their respective brains, are quite good at reading each other and the dangerous situations they find themselves in.  No silly misunderstandings.  No too-stupid-to-live moments.  Just two characters working together and hashing out the suspense thread.

This is a good, strong, solid romantic suspense story that delivers a compelling cat-and-mouse style plot, two smart characters, and enough action sequences to keep the pages turning easily.  It was particularly inspired by all parties involved for this book to be released during the summer time.  It’s a worthy addition to any beach bag.

Grade: B

Summary:

Noticing suspicious activity at her lab, Maura Lindsey used her smarts to dig into the actions of her boss. But when an explosion rocked their offices, the brainy beauty realized she was in over her head. Luckily, she knew just the man—a handsome, tough and extremely qualified man—who could help. All she had to do was convince him to take the case.

Former undercover police officer Liam Anderson never had much time for his best friend’s baby sister, but when Maura showed up at his door claiming to be in trouble, he couldn’t just turn her away. And he couldn’t ignore the intriguing woman she had become. Liam intended to make sure that she stayed out of the line of fire…and stayed safe in his bed.

Read an excerpt.