Don’t Mess with Texas by Christie Craig
Contemporary Romance
September 1, 2011
Paperback
Forever

Reviewed by May

Favorite Quote: "You still can’t get her to sleep with you? Did you tell her you were hung like a racehorse?"

Former Cop Dallas O’Connor was framed for murder, along with several of his friends. Now they’re out of jail, names cleared, and making a difference with their PI business (Don’t Mess with Texas) by helping out those who are innocent as well as helping get the bad guys the system can’t quite get to. Thus begins Christie Craig’s new contemporary romance series.

As the story opens, our heroine Nikki Hunt is meeting her scummy lawyer ex-husband for dinner at a pricey restaurant. After being stuck with the bill when he skips out – she later finds him dead in her car trunk. Naturally the police feel that she did it, and luckily Dallas happens to be at the scene and ready to help prove otherwise. The PI team frequently takes cases for little or no money – and as Nikki is a starving artist with lots of bills do he jumps right into her case – no charge.

“Oh. Yeah. It’s nice to have someone in your corner, isn’t it?”

Something about the sincerity in his eyes, said he’d been there, done that, and wore the T-shirt. “Yeah. It sucks.”

He casually crossed his arms and leaned against the one real wall in the three-sided curtained cubical. And dang blast it, if he didn’t have leaning down to an art form. He looked really good leaning – the pose made his shoulders appear like a slid lean-on-me wall of strength, the blue shirt pulled a bit tighter across his chest and hard torso, and, in the slightly slanted position, his biceps appeared flexed.

Her fingers itched for a pad and paper to sketch him. He’d make a great painting. Lots of body language that said, “bad boy” but at the same time whispered, “hero.”

Both Dallas and Nikki are divorced and have been burned in the game of love. Neither is looking for the other one, and yet fate threw them together and had a way of making sure they had time and opportunity to get to know each other. Together they stand around and watch as information comes to light and they chat with people (I really didn’t feel like these characters did much of anything), and the couple hopes to find the real killer to clear Nikki’s name. The heroine has to live with the hero during the story because there is potentially a threat to her, that is the killer might be looking for her. She’s broke too don’t forget – so a hotel is out of the question.

There are some funny moments, and I do love how Christie Craig brings her characters to life so that you can hear them, you really get to know them and what they’re like. From the grandma who is super protective and loving to the business partners (who will be getting their own books), to the secondary romance between the hero’s brother and his estranged wife – it was easy to fall in love with the people of this particular novel.

Other than the characters themselves, I had a really hard time finding specific to like about this book. I went in expecting to love it, and instead I felt like it just never came together. I do love this author’s brand of humor, but this book just fell flat. Despite the great characters I felt like they didn’t have anywhere to go, and that there wasn’t enough of a story being told. This is a 428 page novel, and at that length this story could have been so much more. I didn’t buy that the wrongly accused PI’s had become so wealthy (off "a fat check from the State of Texas" for being wrongly incarcerated) that they could run their business at a loss and have the money and resources to be working on revenge/bringing to justice a big time drug dealer who had them framed for murder years back. (a plot line that was not resolved)

While I like the concept of this series, I was left with too many questions, details I couldn’t believe, and the story just didn’t deliver anything special or extraordinary. If you are looking for a former cop turned PI hero plus artist heroine set in Texas with a light mildly comedic contemporary romance feel give this a shot. But I’d strongly recommend you check out her previous two novels Gotcha, and Shut up and Kiss Me instead. The latter was one of my top reads of 2010. I hope Craig’s next novel recaptures the brilliance of a comedic romance + loveable characters that I know she’s capable of bringing. I will definitely be picking up the next in this series.

Grade: C+

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