Title: Some Kind of Hero
Author: Suzanne Brockmann
Series: Troubleshooters #17? Reluctant Heroes #2?
Don’t think about it too hard…
I would like to thank Suzanne Brockmann, Ballantine/Random House Publishing Group, and NetGalley for allowing me to read an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
Lieutenant Peter Greene’s daughter, Maddie, goes missing, and Shayla Whitman offers to help him find her. Over the next few days, they use every resource available to them to track her down, but Maddie is on the run with her friend Dingo and doesn’t want to be found. As Pete and Shayla spend time together chasing leads, they find themselves struggling to resist the attraction growing between them. Their lives don’t need any more complications…but the heat between them may melt their resolves.
I was going to rate this four stars, but by the time I got done overanalyzing it, I realized it really wasn’t all that impressive. Coming after Do or Die, it was disappointing.
Now, I liked this book. Every time I had to step away, I was eager to get back to it. It was fun while I was reading it. But…
I still have a love/hate relationship with Brockmann’s very conversational writing style, with all the unnecessary yeahs and okays and oh Gods that most authors would edit out to sound more sophisticated. It sets her apart, though, and makes her writing identifiable, which is good, so more power to her.
The characters were sympathetic, relatable, and lovable, but I cared more about Maddie and Dingo than Shayla and Pete. I’m not sure why; maybe because they’re closer to my age, or maybe because they were on the run while Shayla and Pete were relatively safe. Maddie’s attitude was annoying, of course, as it was supposed to be, but she’s so smart, and there were glimpses of maturity that drew me into her arc. And Dingo was an idiot who was involved in drugs and living in his car, but he was such a sweetie, I was more in love with him than Pete. I think what made the younger set so attractive was their potential to evolve into extraordinary people. Maddie could bloom into an intelligent, confident, and strong woman; Dingo could find his spine and learn to use his brain. Shayla and Pete were already established adults with firm convictions, just horny and lonely and emotionally conflicted enough to be self-conscious.
The plot was far less complicated and more predictable than Brockmann’s other Troubleshooter books, and it was noticeably shorter than the others. That’s not necessarily a bad thing; it just seemed like an unusually simple and straightforward plot for her. However, there were several things that bothered me. First, while many aspects of the story gave me the feels, I felt the narrative overall wasn’t very exciting, or even particularly dramatic. It had everything it needed to be both, but it never managed to get my blood pumping with anticipation. It was intriguing enough to keep me hooked, but the few action scenes were kind of low-key and bland, which means the climax of the story was disappointing:
I expected a team of SEALs to bust in and open a can of whoop-ass on a drug cartel, but Shayla and Pete just had to take on a couple of dumbass thugs. I don’t think they even broke a sweat. I remember I finished reading the scene and thought, “That’s it?”
Also, the Manzanar bits felt forced. I know Brockmann usually works in an entire WWII-era subplot, but apparently she couldn’t think of a way to incorporate one this time. She still wanted to reference the horrors of that time period, however, because she’s always knocking America upside the head, so she shoehorned it in there. But it just wasn’t necessary, at least not to that extent. It could have been removed, the script tweaked, and the same ends would have been achieved.
Then, I’m really confused about how Pete was in the position he was when he and Shayla met at the beginning. I went back and used keywords to search for an explanation I might have missed, but I couldn’t find one. If it’s there and I’m just oblivious to it, I apologize and please skip past the following paragraph.
But from what I can tell, Shayla and Pete only get together because he needed a ride to pursue the car Maddie was in. Because for some reason, Pete didn’t drive to the school, he “hiked.” He was at home with his friends, worrying about Maddie and “getting more silent and tight-lipped as each hour passed, until [he] announced that he was hiking over to the high school because he couldn’t just sit still any longer.” I’m not sure what Brockmann meant by that; did Pete just get restless and go for a walk, or did he go to the school to look for Maddie and search for clues? If the former, then I guess it makes sense that he was on foot and unexpectedly needed a ride, but I can’t imagine him wasting energy going for an aimless walk when he’s frantic about his daughter’s whereabouts. It wouldn’t have been in character for him. But then if he went looking for Maddie, why on earth didn’t he take his truck? Also, would he seriously have thought he’d find her at the school at seven o’clock in the evening? It was very, very lucky for him that Maddie got cold and wanted to fetch her coat from her locker, even though there were blankets in Dingo’s car, and went to the school at seven because she thought that was a time when her father *wouldn’t* be at the school looking for her. Major irony there. And I’m confused about what Maddie, Dingo, and Daryl had been doing at that time, too. No agenda was mentioned, and there are a million possibilities for why three young people were out driving at seven at night, but it’s implied that the trip was made so Maddie could get her coat…(what self-respecting runaway leaves her coat at school?)…and I have a hard time believing they would have made the trip just so she could get her coat. Homeless Dingo couldn’t afford to waste gas—but he didn’t seem to worry about it much, so maybe he was too ignorant to realize or too busy worshiping Maddie to think practically. But I really can’t imagine Daryl indulging her, especially when there were blankets in the car that she could have wrapped up in to keep warm. I think I’m supposed to assume that they were out looking for Fiona, as well as evading Nelson, and made a detour to the school, but they go on to do things in their search that I would think they’d have already done… And why would Daryl have wanted to get involved in that? … I don’t know, I’m tired of puzzling over it.
The point is that the beginning confused me. I feel that it was weak and convenient and Brockmann could have done a much better job setting things up.
There was one other issue that was introduced, then never really got resolved. Pete’s friend Izzy was incredibly hurt that his supposed best bud never told him he had a daughter. Pete apparently never even hinted at ever having had relationships other than one night stands. But Izzy got over it because his friend needed his help, which is awesome and incredibly mature…but I think it needed to be addressed at some point for Izzy’s peace of mind. Or at least my peace of mind. It wouldn’t have ever come between them, of course, they’re completely loyal to one another, but when the dust had settled, I think even Izzy wouldn’t be able to resist asking, maybe over a beer, “Hey, so how come you never mentioned your daughter?” It’s kind of a big deal. And no, the book wasn’t about Izzy and Pete’s friendship, it was about Pete and Shayla falling in love, so it isn’t relevant, right? Then why mention it AT ALL?? Why did Brockmann bring it up if she was just going to gloss over it? I haven’t read the last few Troubleshooter books, but I have a feeling it might have been a way of allowing Pete to have a surprise daughter that was never mentioned before.
I wonder if Shayla’s writer’s block was inspired by Brockmann’s personal experience, because this book was pretty darn lazy…like this was all she could manage to write while her creativity wasn’t firing on all cylinders. There’s the baffling beginning, the unresolved issues, the token explanations—and the fact that Shayla was a romance novelist. There is nothing lazier than a novelist writing about a novelist, unless the character needs to be a novelist in order for the plot to work, and here her occupation wasn’t integral to the plot. It was more of a running gag.
Also, the earthquake was just an excuse to get Shayla and Pete together so they could have sex, and Shayla’s fear of earthquakes was just an excuse to make the earthquake sort-of matter. Honestly, she seemed like a pretty fearless person and did things that someone who professes to be afraid of “literally everything” wouldn’t do. Wouldn’t even think to do. Maybe I’m supposed to think it was part of her arc, that she faced her fears and evolved as an individual, but I don’t buy it. A civilian who’s afraid of “literally everything” wouldn’t have the guts to jump the curb and drive down the sidewalk to get around a line of cars. That was “explained” by her maternal instincts going into overdrive, but I think that was an excuse for her to be uncharacteristic. Shayla had to be afraid of “literally everything” in order for the earthquake sequence to work, but then she needed a reason to override her fear of “literally everything” when Peter needed her to.
Okay, okay, I’m done. I’m just…done with this book.
You probably won’t believe me at this point, but this book IS fun to read…if you don’t think about it too hard, as I just have. I gotta stop doing that.
PS – I would sell my soul for more Maddie and Dingo.
PPS – I have no idea where this fits in the Troubleshooter series. Amazon says it’s #19. At one point it was called the second book in the Reluctant Hero spin-off series, but I don’t remember Pete or anyone being all that reluctant to do anything. Maybe Dingo, because he encouraged Maddie to go home. So I would consider it part of the main series, but it can be read as a stand-alone.
