RED

Author: Jordan Summers ISBN: 9780765359148 11/2008 PARANORMAL/FUTURE Publisher: TOR

Gina Santiago is a member of an elite tactical team in charge of protecting the world. She’s devoted her life to apprehending the most heinous criminals that prey on society—and now she’s after the worst one yet. On her own, with no backup, the trail takes her to a dusty, tight-knit town on the fringes of society, where everyone’s a suspect. Even the sexy sheriff, Morgan Hunter, isn’t telling her everything. Gina knows he’s trouble, but she’s inexorably drawn to him. The closer Gina comes to finding out the secret of this sleepy little town and its big bad sheriff; the closer she comes to catching the predator, the more scared she gets—because she’s beginning to realize that she has a secret, too. A secret that will change Gina’s life… and make her the killer’s prey.

RRAH's THOUGHTS AND PONDERINGS:

Jordan Summers sets her paranormal romance, RED, in the 23rd century. Borders have been redrawn across the globe, clones are grown on farms for general labor, the ecosystems are nearly all destroyed with most cities surviving under biospheric domes, travel is often done using trackless maglev trains or hydrocell cars, and scientific manipulation of people's genes in order to create super soldiers has resulted in a group of beings known as "others" that include vamps and werewolves. Gina Rodriguez (known as Red by her fellow officers because of all the bad guys who get blown away when she's on the case), is one of the few female members of the International Police Tactical Team. As if being female and a little trigger happy aren't enough strikes against her, Red has hypersenses and her grandfather is the commander of IPTT. When her supervisor closes the case of a woman found on the fringe area of the Republic of Arizona and Red believes it to be a case of murder, instead of accidental death and then being gnawed on by animals, Red decides to take some time off and investigate on her own. Why is she so interested? Perhaps it has to do with the vivid dreams she's been having where in one she saw this woman attacked by a beast. After the dream, Red awakened with blood on her clothes. The dead woman's blood.

Summers just drops the readers into this fantastically barren landscape and hopes they'll catch on and keep up. The story is told from multiple viewpoints with only subtle signposting when there is a change. In searching out clues to the woman's death, Red finds herself in a border town called Nuria that is protected by police chief Morgan Hunter, who unbeknownst to Red is also the alpha of his pack. Red quickly discovers that there is more going on in this small town than meets the eyes and that more young ladies have been hunted and murdered. But how will she even begin to get a grasp on this when she doesn't know the secret her grandfather has kept from her; the secret that has kept those who want to eliminate all "others" from finding her? Morgan and Gina/Red click right away, and thus begins a mating dance. Will he be able to mark her and thus protect her before another in his pack, perhaps the killer, fights him for control?

Morgan and Gina discover that a politician running on a campaign platform to eliminate "others" might be involved, as well as a vamp known as Raphael Vega. There are so many threads crossing and crisscrossing. It's a wonder that Gina and Morgan find time to hook up, and a howling success that is!

Red is not just fast paced, it moves in hyperdrive through a twisting, turning maze of shape-shifting characters, plot points that had me second and third guessing who was doing what to whom, and a little doggy-style passion to boot. The reader better get an oxygen mask to keep from passing out! Some of the loose ends never do get tied up, and the allusions to Little Red Riding Hood and the big Bad Wolf scared me away from fairy tales, but it is still a great read. I recommend it to readers sympathetic to the vampire cause, in love with whodunits, and those unafraid of baying at the moon in the throes of passion.

Susan Barton