Review of "Lethal" by Sandra Brown

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Release Date: November 29th, 2011
Buying Links:  Amazon     The Book Depository    

Book Blurb (from goodreads):

When her four year old daughter informs her a sick man is in their yard, Honor Gillette rushes out to help him. But that "sick" man turns out to be Lee Coburn, the man accused of murdering seven people the night before. Dangerous, desperate, and armed, he promises Honor that she and her daughter won't be hurt as long as she does everything he asks. She has no choice but to accept him at his word. 

 But Honor soon discovers that even those close to her can't be trusted. Coburn claims that her beloved late husband possessed something extremely valuable that places Honor and her daughter in grave danger. Coburn is there to retrieve it -- at any cost. From FBI offices in Washington, D.C., to a rundown shrimp boat in coastal Louisiana, Coburn and Honor run for their lives from the very people sworn to protect them, and unravel a web of corruption and depravity that threatens not only them, but the fabric of our society. 

Teaser:

She lay as straight, still, and stiff as a plank, trying to talk herself out of having a full-blown panic attack. She was bound and unable to get free, true. But, she told herself sternly, she wasn't in mortal danger. She counted her heartbeats in order to keep the rate of them under control. She made each breath long and deep.

But these exercises worked no better than reason. 

 Her anxiety continued to mount until she began pulling against the bindings, straining against them with as much effort as she could muster.

My Thoughts:

It's been a while since I read a Sandra Brown book so I was eager to give this one a try. Billed as a romantic suspense, I would say it's more of a suspense story with a minor romantic subplot. Additionally, I didn't really buy Honor and Coburn as a couple. Maybe if Brown had spent more time showing the attraction and building up the anticipation.

While the romance portion of the story was "meh", the mystery and suspense portion worked quite well. We know early on who some of the bad guys are but others are unknown through most of the book and even Coburn is iffy for about the first third of the book. Then there's the question of whether Honor's late husband, a cop, was a dirty cop. Brown spins an engrossing tale, one that kept me up late reading. It's definitely worth a read.

I received a hardcover from the publisher for review.