by Suzanne Brockmann

Ballantine, December, 2004.
Hardcover, 383 pages.
ISBN: 0345467930
Subgenre: Contemporary

Jane Mercedes Chadwick has worked hard to cultivate her image as Hollywood's hot "Party Girl Producer," but it's starting to take a toll on her. For one thing, she'd rather be in jeans and a t-shirt than tottering around in sky high Manolo Blanicks. But it is the negative reactions to her latest film (a War World II biopic of a war hero who happened to be gay), which is worrying her. She's getting death threats from a neo-Nazi group, which objects to the film's positive portrayal of a gay character. Fans of Brockmann's bestselling Navy SEAL series will be thrilled to find out that the strong, silent and mysterious Cosmo Richter has been assigned by Troubleshooter, Inc. to bodyguard Ms. Chadwick and keep her alive during the filming. But Mercedes doesn't want a bodyguard, and Cosmo can't stand the Party Girl Producer. The threats appear to be coming from a terrorist group based in Idaho called The Freedom Network, but the feds are having trouble finding hard evidence to link the group to the death threats. Meanwhile, accidents are starting to happen on the film set, Jane's brother (the star of the movie) is acting really strangely, and Jules Cassidy, the handsome gay FBI agent assigned to the case, has some unfinished business from his past to deal with.

Suzanne Brockmann brews up a heady mix of danger, action, passion and emotion with this latest entry into the Troubleshooters, Inc. series. Hot Target brings back popular character Jules Cassidy, who readers first met in The Defiant Hero, and gives him his own romantic subplot. Cosmo, the strong and silent SEAL from Gone Too Far who is on an enforced one month vacation to take care of his chatty, ailing mother, finally opens up and his scenes with Jane are both funny and moving. As is usual in the Troubleshooteers, Inc. series, the characters are vividly portrayed, the plots are compelling and the writing is excellent. There is enough adrenaline, action and passion here for several books -- and that's what keeps her readers coming back for more.

--Claire E. White

Hot Target is available for purchase on Amazon.com

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This review was published in the January-February, 2005 of The Internet Writing Journal.

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