Little Book Review: Primary Suspect
Author: Laura Scott.
Publication Date: 2018.
Genre: Contemporary Christian romantic suspense.
Premise: Mitch Callahan, a fire inspector in Milwaukee, gets a call from his boss to show up at the scene of a potential arson, but, when he arrives, the only people there are the corpse of his ex-girlfriend and an unknown assailant who knocks him over the head. When he comes to, Mitch hears sirens and flees the scene, knowing that things don’t look good for him. He checks into the ER, where he runs into Dana Petrie, a nurse and the young widow of a firefighter he tried to rescue years ago. Things are awkward enough before some dude pops into his room and tries to stab him, “forcing” the two to go on the run.
Thoughts: I got this book for free when I bought another romance novel from Barnes and Noble a couple years ago, and that’s probably the best thing about it. Reading this novel was the equivalent of chewing flavorless gum. It read as an outline of a plot starring Man and Woman, rather than a full-fledged novel with characters. The most “suspenseful” thing about the plot was when I thought the heroine might be of East Asian descent, based on a description of her hair and the vague hostility of her very WASP-y-sounding in-laws. (By the end, I decided that she was probably intended to be a white lady with shiny black hair; her eyes are green, and her in-laws seem to dislike her specifically because of her working-class background and ability to pick up on their weird vibes. I doubt it would’ve have been a big win for Asian-American representation if she had been Asian-American--everyone in the novel is very bland--but it would’ve been sort of nice in a not very diverse sub-genre of an only somewhat more diverse genre.) I acknowledge that this book is very much not my thing; it’s contemporary, it’s Christian, and it’s romantic suspense, and I can only deal with two of those things at once. But there is remarkably little to hold onto here.
It’s a pretty innocuous novel, though, except for one thing. The premise of the series this book belongs to is positive towards the police; the hero’s dad is a retired cop, and most of his siblings (who either have gotten or will get their own romance) followed in the dad’s footsteps, except for one sister, who became a DA. Yet nearly every choice that the hero makes relies on the premise that the cops specifically and the justice system generally can’t be trusted. He flees from the police at every opportunity, unless he’s asking one of his family members for help. This could be reconciled somewhat if the hero’s brothers were presented as “good cops” within a largely corrupt and/or incompetent system,* yet that’s not the case. I also didn’t get the sense that Mitch expected other people to submit themselves to the system, but viewed himself as the exception. It just reads like the author didn’t think through how the character’s background gelled with his actions.
*I don’t agree with the idea that being a “good cop” is possible in any significant way within the US police system, but it would make sense for Mitch to think this way while acting as he does.
Hot Goodreads Take: I seem to dislike this book more than anyone who wrote a review on Goodreads; the consensus from the most negative reviews is “not my thing” and “a little rushed.” Many people seem to have read it after getting a free copy at Barnes and Nobles a couple years ago.
