Paperback Reader

I gave up Intrigues a while back. There was, as with other Harlequin lines, a bit too much of the cowboy, baby, bride, virgin thing happening for my taste. I longed for variety. I found, especially, that I hated cowboys. Nothing personal for those you who do the cowboy thing, it’s just how I’m built. But I’ve always had a soft spot for Jenna Ryan (her Sweet Revenge is one of my favorite Intrigues ever). And I was sort of recently desperate for a book and, while I didn’t actually find said book, I could leave a bookstore empty-handed. There are laws in the State of California about that. So I bought Ryan’s Cold Case Cowboy. I can’t help myself.

Cold Case Cowboy is your basic cabin romance with a twist here, a turn there. Heck, even the trendy “cold case” label makes sense. Architect Sasha Myer arrives a client’s three days late only to discover that she’s walked into a murder scene. After a long period of silence, the so-called Snow Globe Killer has resurfaced; it’s just Sasha’s bad luck that everyone he’s killed to date is a blonde woman of Scandinavian descent…just like Sasha.

She meets Denver cold case cop, Nick Law (yeah, I know, sigh), who has been called on scene – in an advisory role – by the town’s mayor. Nick, having worked this case for some time, cannot help but notice Sasha’s resemblance to more than a few dead people. Nick, a loner by nature and trade, also finds himself attracted to the outgoing, gregarious Sasha. It’s a soul mate kind of thing, but not in an irritating sort of way.

Now, I liked Sasha. She had mother issues (review theme of the month) that needed a lot more explanation. Mom is an English teacher with a penchant for serial marriages. She’s a bit of a femme fatale, if you know what I mean. But, frankly, that’s all off the page; mostly she’s a nagging harpy who reminds Sasha that she’s done wrong her whole life. Sasha, however, rises above her mother’s lack of characterization (no, really, this book needed a better developed mother) and becomes a living, breathing, stubborn, resourceful individual. She has a career, she’s willing to fight to make herself successful, and she’s scared, real scared, about being a potential victim, but she’s also able to find the necessary strength to keep her head on her shoulders. This is useful when someone's trying to kill you.

Nick, ah, Nick. An enigma wrapped in a mystery. Cowboy turned cop turned loner. Ryan doesn’t let this get as bad as it sounds. He’s actually a pretty well-drawn character. I liked that he accepted his attraction in a healthy, adult way. I also liked that he didn’t try to hold Sasha down. A lot of people equate loners with introverts, and, sure, there’s a lot of overlap, but either way, it doesn’t mean that the man is devoid of personality. These two characters bounced off each other in a very human way. I could see them living beyond the book.

A cabin romance, as we all know, involves cutting our hero and heroine off from society. In this case, they’re cut off with the aforementioned town mayor, the town sheriff (terribly inconvenient for the townspeople), a nervous engineer, a socialite of sorts, a drunk wife-beater, and, oh, a serial killer. Among other critters. There’s a lot of trying to figure out where the killer is and a lot of planning to capture him before he kills Sasha. This involves a lot of trekking in freezing cold snow. Like, trekking in freezing cold snow during what I’d call a blizzard, but anything below sixty degrees is a blizzard, if you want my opinion.

Thought you did. That’s why I offered it.

The problem with a novel of this sort is that there aren’t any real clues for either the protagonists or the reader. This makes the mystery a bit of, well, letdown. You get to protect people, you get to search for clues, and you get to freak out when things go bump in the night, but, well, forward momentum is based on lucky breaks, not good detecting.

So more than a novel of intrigue, this was a romance novel with a serial killer background (among other things). That’s not really a problem, but it also kept this story from rising above the ordinary. Except for one little thing that I’m going to talk about in most general of terms because to be specific would be to give away the best part of the story.

I doubt I’m alone in thinking that the romantic suspense author who gets in the mind of the serial killer painting by numbers. I mean, how many different ways can you this – he’s bad, he’s killed, he tries to fight the urge, but he kills again. Ryan gives her killer specific goals, but he’s still just a shadowy figure who lives outside the story. Am I wrong to want my evil dudes integrated into the story? To be the man next door, the man everyone describes a nice guy, quiet neighbor? The guy standing next you, barbecuing tri-tip? The getting into the killer’s mind conceit while keeping him in the shadows or outside the story is rapidly becoming boring and pointless.

Ryan plays with this, but, in my mind, not enough. And here’s why: the killer is part of the story, known to the reader, yet there’s nothing about him that smacks of foreshadowing. The reader, counting down on her fingers, will declare him a suspect, but the novel’s protagonists never get there, until it’s too late. This makes for a boring mystery as these supposedly smart, insightful people spend far too much time spinning their wheels. The novel’s mystery happens beyond their grasp until the very end when everything falls into place. It simply didn’t feel integral to the story, despite, well, being the driving force of the story.

In many ways, the downfall of the Intrigue imprint is the insistence on highlighting the romance rather than the mystery. Keeping tight focus on Sasha and Nick prevented Ryan from exploring the other characters who impacted the story. This negatively impacted what I thought was a different twist on the serial killer theme – the motivation was unusual and creative. I like it. Would have liked it more if the characters had been stronger, more present in the novel More world-building and character development would have served this story well. Truly. This is an author who has demonstrated a flair for the unusual, and I think her instincts should have been given free rein here.

But enough about me. Oh, except for a little side note: tuna was consumed in the writing of this review. Sure, it was sushi, but, well, you know what they say: you can take the tuna out of girl, but you can’t take the girl out of the tuna.

Hmm. Maybe they don’t really say that.

You can find Jenna Ryan here (no, you can't. I can't find her website. Sigh.). You can buy Cold Case Cowboy here or here. Don't be fooled by the horseback riding dude on the cover. No cows were harmed in the solving this mystery.