Flashpoint, by Suzanne Brockmann

I love Suzanne Brockmann. There's something about her writing that just clicks with me, so much that I venture into a genre I don't like, the military romance, just to read her books. I've previously snapped out her books as soon as they came out, but for some reason, I was able to wait for Flashpoint (excerpt) to come out as a paperback. I don't know if it was the low after Gone Too Far (I confess it, I'm one of the people who adores Sam and Alyssa and waited anxiously for their book), or that the buzz online about Flashpoint wasn't that good, but I was able to withstand the wait quite well.

Jimmy Nash has already lived two lives--and he can’t talk about either of them. Formerly an operative of a top secret government agency, he has found a new job with a shadowy company called Troubleshooters, Incorporated. Created by a former Navy SEAL, Troubleshooters, Inc. helps anyone in desperate need--which provides a perfect cover for its other, more perilous objective: covert special operations.

Now Nash and a quickly assembled team of expert operators have come to the earthquake-ravaged country of Kazbekistan in the guise of relief workers. There, amid the dust and death, in a land of blood red sunsets and ancient blood feuds, they must track down a missing laptop computer that may hold secrets vital to national security.

To get it done, Nash does what he does best: break every rule in the book and manipulate those who can help him get what he needs. But this time, Nash may have met his match in Tess Bailey, a Troubleshooters operative with all the right instincts--and zero field experience. The deep attraction between them is immediate... and potentially volatile, with risk at every turn.

Now these two professionals must play out their dangerous games in the world’s most dangerous place-- isolated from their own government, cutting deals with people they can’t trust, and guarding forbidden passions that threaten to compromise their crucial mission.

Flashpoint had many of the things I like about Brockmann, but the main romantic storyline was a bit lacking. My grade would be a B.

The plot was interesting and well-developed, there was a fascinating secondary relationship and it was all written in the style I love, but I couldn't work up all that much interest in the main couple. Tess was ok... par for the course for a Brockmann heroine (let's face it, her heroines tend to be just ok, it's her heroes who are to-die-for), but Jimmy I never warmed up to. I thought he was bland and a bit juvenile, and I just didn't find him very interesting.

It might have helped if there had been more to the secondary relationship between Sophia and Decker. Don't get me wrong, I was fascinated by what there was between them, and it simply wouldn't have worked if their relationship had developed more during this book, since I didn't feel Sophia would have been anywhere near ready for it. However, the fact that this relationship was so much in its early stages by the end of the book meant that I couldn't find in the secondaries the stomach-clenching romance I wasn't getting from the protagonists, which is what I have done in some earlier Brockmanns.

Hmmm, sounds all I had were problems with this, but really, I enjoyed reading it very much. I'll even do my best to get Hot Target as soon as possible, even if it is in hard cover. My cousin's boss, who lives in Texas is coming next month to Uruguay, and she offered to bring me a couple of books if I wanted to have them delivered to her house. I might just take her up on the offer...