Love and Redemption
4 Stars
Dubbed as a romantic suspense in the title, the operative word here is “romance” not suspense. “Playing Love’s Odds” follow Logan Burke, a top notch private investigator and Hannah Evans, a lab tech for a chemical company in Houston. Cut from the same cloth of John Grisham’s “The Pelican Brief” without the lawyers, “Playing Love’s Odds” was tightly written and technically perfect but failed to pull me in as a reader.
***SPOILER ALERT ***
When I review a book, I always star at the highest rating of 5 stars. When I finished reading, it had dipped into 3 stars but as I went through my personal checklist, I was actually surprised that it climbed back to 4 stars.
Here’s why I took out 2 stars — the book was supposed to be a romantic suspense but it was dragging. There were no real crests and valleys to excite you. It felt like a pendulum that only swings on one side. I need to be frightened and then feel safe to feel the suspense. Hannah was never frightened enough and did not feel safe enough even when she was with Logan already. In short, the promised adrenaline rush when you classify a book as a thriller was not just there.
Here’s why I gave one star back thus the final 4 star rating — the author was wise enough not to modernize the book. Originally written in 1993 before cell phones were common and the Internet as necessary as cable TV, it was great reading about floppy disks, pay phones and pagers. I like the authenticity of the period.
Logan is a memorable character. A dysfunctional hero, he was able to find redemption. Logan was the true main character here. Even Hannah who is the female lead is also on a supporting role. For Logan alone, I would have given one star back. Unfortunately, Hannah did not really pull me in, so I had to take half a star away.
Finally, it is really the author”s writing prowess that made me give the book 4 stars. Both lead characters were fleshed out nicely. In fact, except for,the two bad guys in the end, all characters were solid. It’s just too bad that the plot though it had great promise fell flat. Otherwise, this could have been an adrenaline rush.
This book is rated M for Mature due to subject matter
