Protector by Catherine Mann (Dark Ops #4)
Romantic Suspense
March 6, 2012
Penguin

Reviewed by May

Jolynn is the only daughter of a major mob boss – having witnessed her beloved uncle’s murder when she was just 12 she was quickly whisked off to boarding school and spent most of her adolescence trying to earn her father’s attention. She finally gave up trying to be daddy’s girl, and built her own life in Texas where she supports herself and ignores her trust fund. Now after a heart attack and his life close to an end daddy has called upon her to travel to Europe and take a cruise on his luxury cruise ship to visit with him.

Air force Captain Chuck Tanaka is a character we’ve seen before in past books (he was in need of rescue!) and he barely survived brutal torture, has had to endure multiple surgeries and a long recovery after being held captive by a sadistic woman. He believes he has lost his edge, but his superior officer in the special dark ops unit he works with needs him for this job. There’s terrorist activity and planning happening on a mob boss’s cruise ship and they need to get to the bottom of it.

The heroine is initially stand-offish with the man she believes to be a simple black jack dealer, but she is attracted to him. Both leads are very attractive and feel chemistry right away – but neither wants to act upon it. She is busy putting on a strange "dumb girl" act and he is holding himself back from ravashing her. After it becomes clear that her life is endangered and Chuck has to reveal his true identity, intentions, and go on the run with her they take full advantage of their together time.

She knew all about “Protector Syndrome,” the rescued falling for the rescuer, and she simply didn’t care.

His words at the bed-and-breakfast echoed through her head. He worked for the military, not the mob. While dangerous and apparently in some kind of dark ops capacity, his world had purpose. Honor.

She’d felt the razor edge of that dangerous world today, and their near brush with death made her all the more aware of the rasp of his beard against her cheek, the gentle caress of his calloused hands along the small of her back bared by her sarong. His musky scent mingled with hers in a primal perfume that made her ache for a deeper connection.

Rather than questioning the “whys” and the “wherefores,” she should lose herself in this moment as she’d planned. A very real danger lurked outside that door. She might never have this chance again.

I always appreciate Mann’s way with words and her stories are never slow paced, always moving right along. I also was glad that his true identity didn’t become the crux of the huge blow up and ‘will they work it out or not?’ all that is revealed before they get too invested in each other and I liked that a lot.

That said, I was really disappointed in this book. Not only did I feel like Chuck’s deep psychological issues get glossed over, but Jolynn clearly has some issues of her own and none of their combined trauma, angst, and emotional baggage ever really got cleared up. This would have been ok with me except that over the course of this cruise (a week? Two tops?) they take their relationship from meeting for the first time to diamond rings and forever afters.

I don’t want to get into spoilers, but that’s something that really made me nuts. Especially since one of the things I have admired about some the past Mann books that I’ve read and loved was that she didn’t push into ‘and then he put a ring on her finger’ endings.

While we do get into the character’s heads a bit, it was not nearly enough for me to believe in this ending. Once again, I found myself reading a romance book where I was not given a reason other than “we’re good looking and attracted to each other” for their true love. Adding to my disappointment, was that I found the entire suspense plot to be lackluster and the uncovering of who the bad guys are and all that to be obvious and pretty lame too. They did move around, there was some action, but it didn’t add up to a great read.

Grade: C-

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