Snapped, by Laura Griffin

TITLE: Snapped
AUTHOR: Laura Griffin

COPYRIGHT: 2011
PAGES: 432
PUBLISHER: Pocket Star

SETTING: Contemporary
TYPE: Romantic Suspense
SERIES: Book 4 in the Tracers series

SOPHIE BARRETT THINKS SHE'S LUCKY TO BE ALIVE. SHE MAY BE DEAD WRONG.

On a sweltering summer afternoon, Sophie Barrett walks into a nightmare. A sniper has opened fire on a college campus. When the carnage is over, three people-plus the shooter-are dead and dozens more are injured. Sophie escapes virtually unscathed. Yet as details emerge from the investigation, she becomes convinced that this wasn't the random, senseless act it appeared to be. No one wants to believe her-not the cops, not her colleagues at the Delphi Center crime lab, and definitely not Jonah Macon, the homicide detective who's already saved her life once.

Jonah has all kinds of reasons for hoping Sophie is mistaken. Involving himself with a key witness could derail an already messy investigation, not to mention jeopardize his career. But Sophie is as determined and fearless as she is sexy. If he can't resist her, he can at least swear to protect her. Because if Sophie is right, she's made herself the target of a killer without a conscience. And the real terror is only just beginning...

Sophie Barrett is a receptionist at the Delphi Crime Centre lab, but she wants to get ready for bigger and better things. Thus her midday visit to the local university, where she plans to enroll in some courses. She never makes it, though, since someone starts shooting in the university quad. It soon becomes clear that it's a sniper, shooting from up high. Still, in time, the cops get to him, and he kills himself. And when the autopsy shows a brain tumor, that's basically case closed for the police.

Not for Sophie, though, because she saw something that makes her feel sure that the shooter-driven-crazy-by-tumor-kills-random-strangers explanation is not the right one. Unfortunately, the police don't seem to believe her, not even Jonah Macon, the police detective she knows already and thought liked her.

The suspense plot starts out really fantastic. I was intrigued by it, really wanted to know what had happened. The clues came out in a natural way, and I enjoyed the way the cops conducted the investigation. There were quite a few other cops, apart from Jonah (I suspect their books will come out at some point soon), and all played key parts in the investigation.

Unfortunately, when the ending approached, this all got a lot less interesting. I didn't find the resolution particularly credible (in fact, I found the whole idea of it faintly ridiculous and the reasons for this fantastic plot pretty pedestrian). It ended up being a bit disappointing.

The romance was a bit boring as well. There seems to be a lot of history between Sophie and Jonah, which means that Griffin doesn't really develop their relationship much at the beginning. It just is, instantly. I think a lot of this development would have happened in the book I read, Unforgivable. Problem is, I just didn't remember this. I read it a year ago, and whatever happened between Sophie and Jonah, it wasn't interesting or intriguing enough to stick in my mind. Same thing for something bad that happens to Sophie in that book and that influences her character and behaviour a lot: that one at least I very vaguely remember, but I wanted a bit more, and Griffin didn't really catch us up.

Anyway, whatever development there is in the relationship here, it just didn't interest me much. It's a very tepid romance, and not one I believed in particularly. Not surprising, since I didn't find the characters individually too interesting, either.

MY GRADE: A C+, but almost a B-, due to the good suspense plot at the beginning.