Lynne Connolly’s review of Blue Smoke and Murder by Elizabeth Lowell
Romantic suspense re-released by Avon 31 Mar 09

Elizabeth Lowell wrote two of my all-time favorite romances – To The Ends Of The Earth and Tell Me No Lies. I loved her heroes, who really were rough-tough men’s men, and actually seemed capable of the acts they performed between the pages of her books. They were grown-up, cynical killers, untamable until they met their women. Her heroines were hit and miss for me, but the best were intensely female, while retaining a toughness of character that took them through their ordeals and out again.

Usually, I could see why the men were attracted to them, women who had something about them, didn’t act stupid and weren’t complete doormats. Her research was always impeccable, taking the reader into the world of antiques and precious objects, archaeology and the rancher’s lot. Of course, with an author like Lowell, there were bound to be misses, but I think the romance world would be a much poorer place without her.

These days she writes more suspense than romance, although the result can be seen as romantic suspense, since there’s a romance at the heart of the books. In her latest, “Blue Smoke And Murder,” she takes the reader back to the world of antiques. This time, her heroine, Jill Breck, is a river guide, who is plunged into the world of art and art forgeries when her aunt dies, leaving her a dozen valuable paintings, which someone wants bad enough to murder for.

Her hero, Zach Balfour, works for St. Kilda Consulting, which consists of ex-agents working for an independent operation, and St. Kilda’s owes Jill a favor. While Zach doesn’t like bodyguard work, he’ll do it for Jill.

I enjoyed the connection between Zach and Jill, but maybe the names were a bit close to “Jack and Jill” at times, which made my reading a little bumpy. I got over it. I did like the pace of the book, which moves from one adrenaline-fueled set piece to the next, rarely allowing the reader a chance to get her breath back.

However, I’ve read this before from Lowell, especially in the great Donovan series. I’d love her to return to the deeper romances that provided the backbone to her books. Although I liked Zach and Jill, I could maybe have done with a little more personal connection, a reason for them to be attracted outside the bedroom as well as in it.

Jill’s fundamentalist Mormon background has raised a few hackles here and there. I can’t enter the discussion, I know very little about it, but it might have been better if she’d kept the religion a little vaguer and described a fundamentalist background that would have had the same effect on her heroine without the labels. However, Lowell prefers to give her characters a realistic background, and although sometimes her tendency to move into typecasting makes her a no-no on some readers, her sheer writing ability always draws me back.

Because I think she’s used these themes before to greater effect, I’ll give this one a…

Grade: B-

Blurb:
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Jill Breck was just doing her job as a river guide when she saved the life of Lane Faroe, son of two of St. Kilda Consulting’s premier operators. But when a string of ominous events-including a mysterious fire that kills her great-aunt and a furor in the Western art world raised by a dozen Breck family paintings-culminates in a threat to her life, Jill reluctantly calls in a favor.
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Zach Balfour works part-time as a consultant for St. Kilda. His expertise is gathering and analyzing information from unlikely and often dangerous sources. Though he’s got the skills to be a highly effective bodyguard, being a bullet catcher isn’t his preferred way to spend time.
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Protecting Jill will take him into familiar territory-among a strange, savagely competitive bunch of collectors who’ll do anything to stay at the top. But Jill is in deeper waters than she’s ever known; as she soon discovers, the perils of running wild rivers are tame compared with the hidden dangers in the high-stakes game of art collecting.
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From the cozy rooms of the Breck homestead cabin to the cold multimillion-dollar galleries of the Western art circuit, Zach and Jill must race against time to unmask a ruthless killer hidden in a blue smoke of money, threats, lies, and death. . . .
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Read an excerpt here.