LynneC’s review of Loose Ends (Steele Street, Book 11) by Tara Janzen
Romantic Suspense published by Dell 25 Jan 11

This is, in a way, a letter of thanks to Ms. Janzten for writing a series of books that have given me so much pleasure for years. These books aren’t perfect, but they are the most fun you can have between two covers. Janzen is the kind of author who just writes and gets her books into the bestseller lists but rarely gets reviews and discussion online. So this is my letter of thanks to her. Although this is a review of the last book in the series, I want to say how much I enjoyed each and every one.

I started reading the series from a book I picked up at a conference. It was Crazy Wild, the book about Creed Rivera, the Hispanic blond with gray eyes, who, because of his coloring, never felt he belonged anywhere. I spent half the long flight home, in the worst seat on the plane, reading this book, totally taken away and loving every minute. It’s still one of my favourite books in the series.

The series is about a group of warriors who live and work in Steele Street, Denver, Colorado. They are led by Dylan Hart, a wealthy ex-secret agent, who gathered a motley group to form the elite force. The building used to be a chop shop, a place where stolen cars could be taken apart and reassembled, and the cover for the ops is now a place that restores old muscle cars. In fact, the cars are secondary characters. They all have names and each operative has a preferred car. It gives a great texture and continuity to the whole series. The series has a separate story per book and an overarching story arc that culminates in Loose Ends. I’m going to do my best to avoid spoilers. So you can read them as separate books or you can read them from start to finish. Either way, I guarantee you a good time.

There are plot holes in these books. The characters have sex at inappropriate times. There are a few inconsistencies. My advice? Ignore them. Just go with it. The sense of place is strong in these books, particularly when the story is set entirely in Denver, as Loose Ends is. The cars and the great warehouse that is a workspace and contains loft apartments for several of the operatives are so real you can see them.

Janzen has a gift for explaining a complicated scenario without getting you too bogged down or chucking in great swathes of backstory. And she has that “page turnability” authors strive for and don’t always achieve. I sat up far too late reading Loose Ends. Putting it down just wasn’t an option.

In the first book of the series, we hear how Peter Chronopoulos, with the wonderful nickname of Kid Chaos, and Christian Hawkins return from South America from an operation gone wrong, leaving one of their number, JT Chronopoulos, Kid’s brother, behind, tortured, and dead. (here’s the spoiler – unavoidable when discussing this book, but hardly a surprise to most) This book is JT’s story. He’s calling himself Con Farrel, has broken away from the organization that has made him a supersoldier, and is determined to spend what is left of his life hunting down and killing the man who has done this to him. Not for revenge, or not primarily for revenge, but to stop him from doing it to anyone else. The villain is doing it to others and he is wrecking lives, because the experiments are terrible and result in unstable human beings with a short lifespan. He’s done it to women, too, and one of them, Gillian, or Red Dog, is now a member of the Steele Street team.

That’s something I love about the series – there are badass female warriors, too. Dylan Hart, the leader of the group, is married to one of them, a woman with one of the best names in the whole of romance, Skeeter Bang. She’s now Skeeter Bang-Hart.

Each book contains a romance, and Loose Ends is no exception. Jane Linden used to be a pickpocket, one of the best. She’s now running an art gallery, but old skills die hard, and when she sees a man who looks just like her old love, JT, on the street, she takes a minute to grab his wallet out of his back pocket. After an explosive (literally) scene set back at Steele Street, she finds herself on the run with JT, now calling himself a different name and with his memory of events older than six years completely obliterated. Except he still wants her.

There is a secondary romance, and here you have to prepare yourself for a plot thing, because the person necessary for the first set piece has little to do for the rest of the book. So the secondary romance, between an operative and a more or less redundant character, isn’t as compelling, but Janzen gives these people character, instead of lazily putting characteristics into a shell. So you care about them and what they want. The resulting romance is sweeter and less fraught, but is an interesting counter to the main romance between JT and Jane.

Janzen writes graphic novels on the page. I don’t read many graphic novels, but this reads like one. Big, explosive set pieces, then smaller scenes, and never a moment to catch your breath. It’s hard to convey what fun these books are, so I’ll let Janzen do it for herself:

This is when Con (JT) first sees Jane in the street:

Keeping his pace steady, he allowed himself the luxury of letting his gaze travel over the jungle girl—urban jungle. She was “city” from the top of her head to the discreet black leather straps wrapped around the ankles of her boots. If beauty had an edge, she was it, the gloss of sophistication highlighting her attitude and the toughness he saw in the way she carried herself, in her awareness of her space. The sidewalk was crowded, but she had a way of not letting anybody get too close. He knew it wasn’t an accident, the way she kept herself apart, because he had the same skill, the same instinct. It was survival learned the hard way.

Thirty yards and closing, twenty yards, ten yards and he caught her scent, picking it out of the thousands in the air, exotic, sensual, female, and, yes, feral—a kindred spirit. He couldn’t take his eyes off her, and the smallest smile curved a corner of his mouth.

Wild Thing.

Five yards and something shifted in her stride, a hesitation. Her next step came slower, and then she stopped, her mouth opening on a soft gasp. She was looking straight at him. He could feel her gaze, felt her awareness of him spike and redline. He was scarred—on his face, on his arms, his hands, his chest—hell, everywhere—but it wasn’t horror reaching out to him from her. It was something … something … something else. Something he hadn’t felt in a long time.

See what I mean? Fun. Go read.

Grade: A

Summary:

WHITE-HOT, DOWN-AND-DIRTY PASSION IGNITES WHEN A SEXY SOLDIER ENCOUNTERS AN IRRESISTIBLE THIEF WHO’S CHANGED HER WAYS.

Six years ago, the Special Defense Force mourned the loss of J. T. Chronopolous. Now the striking soldier is back with scant memory, a new name—Conroy Farrel—and one single mission: to bring down SDF. But SDF has its own plan: get him back at any cost. And so they’ve set a trap for Con, a trap that Jane Linden accidentally steps into. With darkness falling and the night heating up, Con finds himself on the run in an oddly familiar 1967 Pontiac GTO with a drop-dead-gorgeous brunette named Jane by his side. Who she is he doesn’t know. Or does he? Jane certainly hasn’t forgotten him. When she was a teenager, he caught her picking his pocket. Now the former street thief is all grown up and gone legit—and the effect she has on Con is all too clear: pure, sweet longing. Con’s not sure if Jane is there to save him or to take him down. But one thing’s certain: With desire leading the way, all bets are off.

Read an excerpt.

Other books in the series: