#CBR7 Book 62: "Into the Shadows" by Carolyn Crane

Page count: 310 pages
Rating: 4 stars

Thorne McKelvie has meticulously and ruthlessly worked his way up through the ranks of criminal organisation the Hangmen, a group that doesn't shy away from human trafficking in sweat shops, drug or arms smuggling. The leader of the Hangmen is suspicious of Thorne, however, and worried that he is gunning for his spot next, taking over the whole organisation. So after a series of unexpected attacks on the gang's and their allies' warehouses, he sees an opportunity to have Thorne framed and removed as a threat. Thorne needs to prove that he's not responsible for the raids, and to do so, he needs to search the mansion of his former employer, and face the only woman he ever had feelings for.

Nadia Volkov used to be known as "the Party Princess", obliviously spending her father's money and partying with his many henchmen and bodyguards, without really caring what her father actually did for a living or where the money fuelling her extravagant lifestyle came from. Two years ago, she had an affair with Thorne, her father's most dangerous henchman, which ended when he cruelly cast her aside. When Thorne unexpectedly turns up at the house where Nadia is living with her sister, one of her father's former bodyguards, and her young son, she's terrified that Thorne will discover he's a father and that their child will be in danger once his crew mates realise that there is a toddler that can be used as leverage against him. She also hopes Thorne doesn't discover that she, along with some hired goons, are responsible for the warehouse raids he's investigating. After her father's death, she was appalled when she discovered what he'd been responsible for. Having discovered that her mother is probably alive, in one of the sweatshops now run by the gangs who divided her father's assets after his death, she's systematically raiding each one, freeing the enslaved women in order to locate and liberate her mother.

Thorne believes that Nadia just used him for sex, having overheard and misunderstood a conversation where Nadia discussed him with her sister and offered to "share". Filled with self-loathing and with no illusions about his ruthlessness and inability to feel any sort of softer feelings since his sister was brutally killed when they were teenagers and swore revenge, Thorne and Nadia's former relationship was an extended role play on "the princess and the thug". Nadia actually had feelings for Thorne though, and was uncomfortable with the dirty names he wanted her to call him. She never had second thoughts about keeping his child when discovering she was pregnant. When they reunite, the sparks fly once more, but can they have any sort of future, with Nadia responsible for the crimes Thorne is being accused of? He needs to locate and present the individuals responsible to his boss, or be killed.

Nadia also doesn't realise that Thorne worked as a henchman for her father and moved on to the Hangmen as part of a complicated revenge plot. Having been left to die in the desert, surrounded by scorpions, after his sister was murdered, Thorne swore revenge and has been working methodically to wipe out all the men responsible for his sister's death. Working so deep cover for the covert Associates that only the leaders of these secret agents know he's not the hardened criminal he poses as, he only has one man left before his revenge is complete - Jerrod, the leader of the Hangmen.

Due to his past, Thorne is scarred, literally and figuratively. What happened to him and his sister was dreadful, and the flashbacks to his past made me deeply uncomfortable. To escape his chains in the desert, he needed to push himself to the edge of human endurance and he's spent his entire adult life systematically hunting down every man who was present when his sister was murdered, whether they actually took part in the killing or not. Thanks to Dax, the leader of the Associates, Thorne was able to position himself closer to several of the people responsible. Through their alliance, Dax gets access to invaluable intel about a number of criminal organisations, while Thorne was able to get close to the last man on his hit list.

In order to rise to the top of the Hangmen, Thorne has done any number of terrible things. He's a ruthless and hard man. Nonetheless, he's tired of his revenge quests and longs to be done. His feelings for Nadia are complicated. Just when he was ready to acknowledge to himself that he loved her, he overheard her conversation with her sister (which was not at all what it seemed), making him believe she felt nothing for him, means he now thinks of her with what he terms "love-hate". He dumped her before she could dump him, not realising that the evening he coldly rejected her, she was actually about to tell him about being pregnant. Even before the events that set him on his path to vengeance, Thorne never had a good family life and struggles with any human interactions that don't involve dominance and power play.

While Nadia used to find the role playing and abusive language quite exciting, now it makes her sad and uncomfortable, and when they are reunited,and she's unable to deny that her feelings for him are as strong as ever, she tries to express to Thorne that she only ever called him names because he seemed to get off on it. It doesn't take long before the two are growing close again, despite the dangers facing both of them. Jerrod wants Thorne gone, and when he discovers that Thorne and Nadia have a shared past, he has the weapon he needs to bring his second in command down.

As with Carolyn Crane's previous two books in the series, Into the Shadows is full of action, suspense, complicated and wounded people who need each other to try to make sense of the world. There is a emotionally struggling hero seeking revenge and justice, and a capable and determined heroine. The villain is once again truly despicable, making it abundantly clear that while Thorne isn't a boy scout by any stretch of the imagination, he's in the right in taking Jerrod down. I really liked most things about this book, however, I would have liked even more present interaction between Nadia and Thorne, rather than so many flashbacks. I also found some of the internal machinations of the Hangmen a bit tiresome. It was a fun, suspenseful, sexy read, though. While techincally book 3 in a series, each book can be read as a stand-alone, which is always nice. The book is nominated for a RITA in the Romantic Suspense Category, and it is a well deserved nomination. Ms. Crane also self-publishes her very entertaining Associates novels, so consider buying a copy so she can afford to keep writing.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR7 Book 60: "Off the Edge" by Carolyn Crane

Page count: 383 pages
Rating: 4 stars

Laney Lancaster has been on the run from her monstrous ex-husband for the past two years. While he's in jail (because of Laney), she knows that there is no way he'd let his many efficient and ruthless henchmen stop looking for her. Hiding as a lounge singer in a hotel in Bangkok, Laney is aware that the brothers of her friend Rajini may be involved with organised crime, but they have also been keeping her safe, with a job and a place to stay. She would love to have other options, but her husbands criminal contact network runs far and wide, and she's terrified of falling back into his clutches. She's deeply cautious and barely ever even leaves the hotel grounds, but makes an exception to celebrate her birthday.

Peter Macmillan is an Associate, one of many undercover operatives working where other law enforcement agencies can't always operate. He used to be a linguistics professor at the top of his field, until he lost all he held dear in a tragic accident and became obsessed with revenge. Using his unique skills of determining minute dialect and speech markers to track those responsible for the accident, he nearly got himself killed, but also caught the attention of the leaders of the Associates and offered a new chance to make a difference. Now he tracks down criminals, terrorists and arms dealers, able to track and identify them from the way they speak and their vocabulary choices. There's going to be an auction for a devastating new weapon in Bangkok, and Peter needs to track down the arms dealer, based only on the vocabulary quirks caught in the encrypted messages announcing the auction. When he realises that Laney sings in the hotel every night and records herself and everyone surrounding the stage, he realises that this is his best chance to identify the arms dealer. He just needs to get close enough to copy her recordings.

Because it's her birthday, Laney lets herself be charmed by the beautiful stranger who seems to have such insight into her song lyrics. After a very steamy encounter, she leaves him alone in her room for a few minutes, and returns to discover him searching her computer. She's convinced he must be working for her ex-husband, and within minutes, Rajini's brothers and their thugs have Peter hauled away, promising to get to find out why he was snooping in her private files. The day after, talking to some of the hotel staff, she realises that the stories she's been told by Rajini and her brothers don't entirely add up, and start investigating the fate of her lover herself. When she discovers that he's chained in the basement of the hotel, having been badly beaten, she questions him about his connection to her ex and discovers that he knows nothing of the man. She frees him, and hopes he can forgive her for landing him in trouble.

Peter, however, has discovered that the Shinsurin brothers record most of the prominent guests in the hotel, probably for possible blackmail purposes, and eyes a golden chance to get the voice recordings he needs to identify their terrorist arms dealer. Of course, in order to get access to the footage, he needs to make the Shinsurins believe he is still their helpless prisoner. After arranging with his fellow Associates in Bangkok to get the guards sedated at a set time, he locks himself back up in the cell, so they don't suspect him of being more than an overly curious admirer, waiting for his chance to use the hotel monitoring equipment to catch his mark.

While Laney may seem unbearably naive, hiding in plain sight as a nightclub singer in a Bangkok hotel, taking the shelter offered by Thai criminals without questioning their actions too much, she clearly did not have a lot of options to get away from her sociopathic and brutal ex-husband. That she should probably question the fact that they keep finding excuses for getting her a new fake passport and finding compelling reasons for why she must never leave the hotel seems obvious to me, but then I've really never been in a domestic abuse scenario of the level that Laney is running from.

Peter hides a wealth of deep pain and is trying desperately not to face the memories of his lost loved ones. For years, his missions for the Associates have been everything he needs, but he's clearly ready for something more, and when he makes an unexpected connection with Laney, he's scared. Not proud of the many dark things he's done while working undercover, he tries to drive her away by being brutally honest with her, but Laney's been around dangerous men before, and while Peter may have killed, he's a man with ethics and a moral code. The two join forces to track down the terrorist arms dealer that Peter needs to stop. With Laney suddenly insisting on leaving the safety of the hotel where she's been hiding, she'll become a lot more visible. Can they complete the mission before Laney's creepy ex catches up with her again?

I liked Against the Dark, but it was little more than a long novella, having the characters meet and fall for each other very quickly, without too much backstory being developed for either of them. In this, Carolyn Crane has time to establish each of the characters more, and spends more time developing the plot. I'm a sucker for an intelligent hero, and Peter's linguistic abilities were fascinating to me. It wouldn't surprise me if there were people out there in real life with precise enough skills to unfailingly identify where a person was from the way Peter can do, but if there isn't, she created a believable enough skill set for him. This is another action-packed and suspenseful read, with a compelling central couple, and interesting supporting characters, several of whom I'm sure I'll meet in later books in the series.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR7 Book 47: "Against the Dark" by Carolyn Crane

Page count: 203 pages
Rating: 4 stars

Five years ago, Angel Ramirez gave up safe-cracking and stealing and swore to mend her ways, sick of hurting and using people. She's been working hard to stay on the straight and narrow, making a living as an interior decorator, trying to earn the forgiveness of her disappointed family members. When the woman Angel considers as close as a real aunt is kidnapped, and the ransom demanded is the hoard of diamonds belonging to notorious gangster Walter Borgola, Angel has no choice but to reunite with her girl gang for one last heist. With the amount of planning and research Angel and her friends put in, it should have been a quick and easy job, if it hadn't been for the presence of Cole Hawkins.

A highly trained operative in a secret intelligence organisation, having established himself over the course of months deep undercover in Borgola's crew, Cole Hawkins knows he is running out of time. He needs to figure out the location of Borgola's private safe and get his hands on some encrypted shipping documents, in order to save a boatload of teenagers on their way to sexual slavery and most likely grisly death in Borgola's torture porn and snuff films. Having slowly worked himself up in the ranks, he only has a matter of days left before the ship docks. When Borgola's diamonds are stolen from his bedroom safe, believed to be nearly impossible to crack, Cole sees an opportunity to finally reach his goal. He blackmails Angel. In return for her posing as his lover at Borgola's compound, aiding him in tracking down and breaking into the private safe, he won't turn her and her partners in to the authorities and in addition he'll make sure that Angel's aunt is rescued from her kidnappers.

Drawn to Cole, despite her disgust that he is blackmailing her (he can't tell her why he needs to break into Borgola's private safe, as that information is classified), Angel soon discovers that pretending to be his girlfriend won't require much faking, as the chemistry between them is sizzling. Of course, whether they have a future together as a real couple very much depends on whether they survive breaking into a ruthless sociopath's high security vaults and getting away without him catching them...

In November last year, I fairly quickly devoured Carolyn Crane's Disillusionists trilogy, after the first book was the monthly pick in Felicia Day's Vaginal Fantasy book club. So when I discovered the first three books in her new romantic suspense series, the Associates, in an e-book sale earlier this year, I figured they were worth checking out, and then, as far too often happens, I forgot all about them for a while. Then I read a blog discussion about this book over on All About Romance, where all three participants were highly complimentary, which spurred me to pick it up.

It's not a very long book, and the action takes place over a very short space of time. I tend to find insta-love stories a bit annoying, but in Cole and Angel's case it's more a case of insta-lust and as their personal chemistry is off the charts and they're thrown together under very tense and extraordinary circumstances, I can see why their feelings develop very quickly. I really liked both protagonists a lot, as well as the friends they had supporting them on either side. I'm assuming that some of the Associates mentioned are going to show up in future books, but I would also be happy to see Angel's friends show up as well. Her gang was pretty cool, although the nickname "White Jenny" for one of women got on my nerves.

Borgola is a truly skeevy and reprehensible villain and you understand why Cole is willing to risk his own safety and use every underhanded trick in the book to rescue the teenagers on their way to be exploited, abused and eventually probably murdered. Not really a brawny action type, more a highly trained nerd with an obsession for logistics, Cole was an intriguing action hero. I always find intelligence much more attractive than just muscles. If that intelligence is combined with deadly skill, so much the better.

Angel is a great heroine, honourable and loyal to a fault. Having come to regret her previous life of crime, she works so hard to prove she's reformed to her disapproving parents. While she clearly has a genuine gift for helping others design and decorate their dream homes, she doesn't really take any pleasure from her new life, clearly missing the adrenaline rush provided from her former safe-cracking escapades. Cole and his Associates may provide a way for her to combine her two different skill sets and open up for a more satisfying and challenging future for her.

As well as some truly nail-bitingly tense bits, there are also some very steamy sex scenes in this book, one memorable one which is just Cole suggesting to Amber what took place on their first date, when they're trying to rehearse their cover story about being lovers before going to dinner at Borgola's. Let's just say he paints quite the graphic word picture. My figurative stays most certainly needed loosening. Online reviews suggest that the sequels to this are even more enjoyable, so I'm looking forward to reading them in the coming months.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR6 Book 126-128: "The Disillusionists trilogy" by Carolyn Crane

Total page count: 1139 pages
Rating: 4 stars

Once again, I'm going to make things easier for myself, by using a blurb:

Justine knows she's going to die. Any second now.

Justine Jones has a secret. A hardcore hypochondriac, she's convinced a blood vessel is about to burst in her brain. Then, out of the blue, a startlingly handsome man named Packard peers into Justine's soul and invites her to join his private crime-fighting team. It's a once-in-a-lifetime. With a little of Packard's hands-on training, Justine can weaponize her neurosis, turning it outward on Midcity's worst criminals, and finally get the freedom from the fear she's always craved. End of problem.

Or is it? In Midcity, a dashing chief of police is fighting a unique breed of outlaw with more than human powers. And while Justine's first missions, one against a nymphomaniac husband-killer, are thrilling successes, there is more to Packard than meets the eye. Soon, while battling her attraction to two very different men, Justine is plunging deeper into the world of wizardry, eroticism and cosmic secrets. With Packard's help, Justine has freed herself from madness - only to discover a reality more frightening than anyone's worst fears.

November's main pick for Vaginal Fantasy is a bit of a slow starter, and I found myself actually wishing for a bit more exposition in order to establish the world in which these books take place. The concept of the trilogy is so clever, though, and I was very quickly hooked, to the point where I couldn't stop after the first book (which is quite frequently the case with the VF books), but read the whole series in less than a week. 

The books are set in Midcity, an urban fantasy city that reminds me a lot of Chicago. There are some people with special powers, known as highcaps, who can do everything from move objects with their minds, manipulate matter, invade people's dreams or psychologically manipulate their victims. There are some who suggest that the highcaps are just an urban legend, but as more and more people are dying from bricks flying out of nowhere, it seems very likely that highcaps exist and are very dangerous. Midcity is in the midst of a crime wave, and handsome new police chief Otto Sanchez seems to be the only one willing to try to make a change.

Justine is not a highcap, she's a neurotic young woman whose mother died of a particular kind of aneurysm, called a vein star, and Justine is convinced this is what's going to kill her too. She gets panic attacks at the most inconvenient moments and has spent a small fortune going to doctors and the emergency room when she's convinced she's near death. It's putting serious strain on her relationship with her boyfriend, who just wants her to get over her irrational fears. So when she meets the mysterious Packard while at a Mongolian restaurant and he claims that unless she accepts his help, her fear is leading her on a rapid path into crippling insanity. He says he can teach her to channel her fears into other people, using it as a weapon to destabilise them. Justine scoffs at this idea, but can't quite put the idea out of her mind. She returns to the restaurant, and Packard introduces her to some of the other Disillusionists who work for him. He has a secret, private group of vigilantes, who use their powers to psychologically bring criminals towards rock bottom, forcing them to change their ways and minds. They can channel rage, ennui, addiction, gambling problems and the like and Packard thinks Justine could be an invaluable asset because of her health fears.

Once the Disillusionists "zing" their worst impulses into their victims, they themselves are free of them for up to a month and feel great as a result. However, according to Packard, they can't just go around channelling their fears or rage or cravings into anyone, or the psychic backlash could kill them. Packard is a highcap with unique psychological insight into everyone he meets and this allows him to see exactly how they can be broken down, or whether they can. He alone also seems immune to the "zings" of the various Disillusionists, allowing them to channel even when there isn't a suitable criminal that needs taking down. This allows him to show Justine just how good it can feel when she gets rid of her crazy health fears. She agrees to help him, as she is loving the normal life she is suddenly able to enjoy with her boyfriend, free of anxiety and stress, but she is only intending to do it short term, not comfortable with the moral implications of psychologically attacking people, even criminals.

Then she discovers that Packard is quite ruthless in achieving his goals. One of the other Disillusionists is surprised when Justine claims she's only part of their little team for a short while. It seems that once they start "zinging" others, their brain chemistry is gradually altered and if they suddenly stop, they're going to be overwhelmed by the very negative impulses they have gotten used to channelling and will end up in a vegetative state. Packard didn't tell Justine because he, very correctly, knew she'd never agree to join up if she knew. He isn't just destabilising criminals from the kindness of his heart, he makes a lot of money from people these criminals wronged, and his ultimate endgame is revenge against the individual who trapped him in the very restaurant Justine first met him. For more than eight years, Packard has been unable to leave the place. He's also unable to change the decor, or the menu and if things get destroyed, they're back the way they were before the very next day. Justine, who during her training has grown more and more attracted to Packard, is appalled and swears that she will figure out a way to be free of his manipulative control. She and the other Disillusionists can't really help themselves from trying to figure out exactly who trapped their boss, and how they can work together to free him.

In the second book, Double Cross, Justine and the other Disillusionists are working to rehabilitate a number of criminals that Packard's nemesis had kept locked away in various locations in the city, just like he had Packard. A trio of men nicknamed the Dorks (because former Chief of Police, now Mayor, Otto Sanchez, has forbidden the media from glorifying criminals with cool monikers, and all criminals written about in the media now have randomly selected humiliating names instead) are targeting highcaps, and mysteriously seem to be completely immune to all their powers, while able to identify them from normal humans. As both the men Justine feels drawn to are highcaps and thus in danger of being the next victim, she is feeling stressed and affected, even though she's able to channel her fears away. If Packard is killed by the Dorks, Justine and her dysfunctional friends will all eventually become drooling wrecks, so they work together to discover the true identies of the killers.

In the third book, Head Rush, Justine should be blissfully happy. She's finally free of Packard's control and doesn't have to channel her crippling fear into others to stay sane. She's attending nursing school (not just posing as a fake nurse like when she was a Disillusionist), she's engaged to the man of her dreams and the big hero of Midcity, planning the wedding of the year. Her best friends are going to be attending her at the wedding, so why is she plagued by constant headaches, vague nightmares, anxiety and an unsettling distrust for her beloved fiancee?

Midcity is under martial law, with a strict curfew being enforced because sleep-walking cannibals are roaming the streets at night. There are more dangerous criminals around than ever before, but Mayor Otto Sanchez is staunchly promising that things will change very soon. Thanks to the help of her reclusive, paranoid father and a few of her very loyal friends, Justine is able to unravel the mysteries surrounding her and figure out who her heart really belongs to.

Product warning from book three: This book contains high-speed rollerblade chases, a mysterious green dashboard ornament, a father of the bride in full hazmat gear and a delicious kebab. 

I read a lot of urban/paranormal fantasy, and finding something a bit different from your kickass heroine with a sword/crossbow/magical powers/shapeshifting/shiny daggers is very refreshing. Justine is a wreck, a self-absorbed, neurotic hypochondriac who constantly lies to herself about what she really wants from her life. She's not stupid, but certainly no genius. She's not exactly a coward, but she's certainly no action heroine. She's stubborn, quick to anger, quite often petty and very easily persuaded. Yet she's a loyal friend, she's not afraid to speak her mind and she quite naturally just wants a normal life and a reliable guy who loves her.

Neither of the two men that she falls for in this trilogy are exactly stable, reliable, trustworthy sort of people. They are childhood friends and long time enemies, sometimes working together, but more often to destroy one another. They are dangerous, ruthless, powerful and extremely manipulative. One of the things I liked about the series is how many times the status quo is completely turned on its head. You think you know what's going on, and then there is a surprise twist, and another, and a third, until you're really not sure who you should be rooting for. Who is the hero and who is the villain? Is it ok to completely destabilise and rewrite people's psyche to turn them from a life of crime? Is it ok to keep people under house arrest without any verdict or trial to protect the majority of the populace? Just how far can one person go to impose their unique idea of justice and order? While I'm really not a huge fan of love triangles, this one was very central to the plot of the series and the fact that the reader, as well as Justine, honestly doesn't entirely know who to trust, or who she should choose, makes for interesting reading.

I liked that all the various Disillusionists were severely screwed up individuals who would have been crazy or worse if they hadn't joined up with Packard and learned how to channel away the worst of their impulses into others. They all make for an interesting supporting cast of characters, although some are given a lot more prominence than others. I loved the idea that someone crippled by drug or alcohol addiction, or chronic gambling problems, or debilitating anxiety and hypochondria could transfer this to someone else, and use it as a weapon. It's such a very unusual idea and one of the reasons I really just dropped everything else to read these books. While by no means flawless, the books were different and extremely entertaining. I suspect I will be checking out what else Carolyn Crane has written, and I hope her other works are as fun as these books.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.