FADE THE HEAT

Author: Colleen Thompson ISBN: 0505526484 11/2005 SUSPENSE Publisher: DORCHESTER/Love Spell

"First, you gotta find the perfect bottle," the Firebug rasped. "Too hard, and it won't bust when it hits the floor: Too thin, and it explodes on impact with the window, splashing you with the fuel mix and burning you to hell." Someone is setting fires in the Houston barrio, and Dr. Jack Montoya is the first intended victim. Is there some connection between the torching of his apartment and the gorgeous blonde from his past who appears at his clinic on the same day? For sure, Reagan Hurley turns up the flames of his libido, but these days the beautiful firefighter is more interested in putting out conflagrations than fanning old sparks. Yet when a hotly contested mayoral race turns ugly, when Reagan's life is threatened and Jack's career almost destroyed, when desire sizzles uncontrollably between them, it seems that no one will be able to…Fade the Heat.

RRAH's THOUGHTS AND PONDERINGS:

Ouch! I can't believe how hurt I am that FADE THE HEAT isn't as good as the last Colleen Thompson book, FATAL ERROR. That book was just smoking while FADE THE HEAT is more like sputtering.

Though in all honesty I did not guess the mastermind plot behind this criminal mystery, I did know just about everything else. I knew that the hero had an idiot for a sister and had a hard time feeling sorry for her. And I knew that the heroine, who kind of redeems herself a bit in my mind towards the end, is mostly witchy to him. I really didn't like her, though at times, I felt for her. She is really strong but needs to lighten up on the hero a bit. Her soft side is like a pincushion.

As before, I think Colleen Thompson is a woman who knows how to spin a tale. Her writing is great and her plots are usually right on. It's the characters in FADE THE HEAT that make it a hard read for me. The only one I like is the hero.

Shannon Johnson