Fairly good romance/thriller. A corporate law firm decides to use an Alaskan lodge owned by a former member of the firm, to sort out the candidates for senior partner. Attempted and successful murders, assaults and other mayhem punctuate the story, as well as a mild love story with no sex included. (actually a relief, after the multitude of stories these days that include actual graphic description) The heroine did stupid things putting herself in danger. The murderer had too many episodes of convenient luck.STORY BRIEF:Lisa and Mitch were attorneys working for the same law firm in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. They fell in love and were engaged. Then Mitch decided to leave the law practice and move to Alaska to run a lodge/resort which he recently inherited. Lisa did not want to go and broke up with him. This book starts one year later. The senior partner in the law firm is deciding which of three candidates to promote to senior partner. Lisa is one of them. He books a trip to Mitch’s resort for the three junior partners plus himself and his wife. He wants to see them doing challenging outdoor activities before making up his mind. Someone pushes Lisa into the river rapids. She almost dies but Mitch rescues her. She and Mitch decide not to tell anyone she was pushed until they can figure out who did it and why. The rest of the story is about the group’s activities and some more bad things happening while Mitch and Lisa attempt to uncover the culprit.REVIEWER’S OPINION:This is classified as romantic suspense, but the romance is not very much and is not typical for romance novels. We don’t get to see a couple meeting and developing a relationship. This story starts with a couple who broke up. During the story, they slowly reconnect while trying to solve a mystery and avoid being killed. This is primarily a mystery suspense story. There are no sex scenes which is unusual for contemporary writing labeled romantic suspense.The first half was above average, but I had some problems with the plot and events during the second half. Three things bothered me.Someone cut a leather line. We never learned who did it or how they did it without being seen. A group watched as someone set up the sleds and lines. A few minutes later the race started. Someone would have had to cut the line in front of the group during that couple of minutes. That was never answered.Someone has been trying to kill Lisa. Yet she does two things that make it easy for the killer to attempt killing her again. As she is doing those two things I’m shaking my head saying that is stupid. I would never have done those things, being alone and/or putting myself at risk in those ways. Those two things hurt the story the most. I was also annoyed that Lisa and Mitch did not inform the sheriff or let him help them investigate. The results were obstructing an investigation, delaying it’s start, and withholding evidence. That too was stupid.I also did not like the way the author made it so easy for the killer. Each attack was based on convenient opportunity, not planning. The killer would see someone alone and then attack. Yet to everyone else it looked like an accident or self inflicted. How convenient for the killer. I would think most killers have to carefully plan to get that result as well as being lucky. They don’t just happen to see multiple opportunities to do this and get away with it each time. I need a little more realism.DATA:Story length: 380 pages. Swearing language: none. Sexual language: none. Number of sex scenes: none. Setting: current day Talkeetna and a small rural town in Alaska, and Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Copyright: 2010. Genre: mystery suspense with minimal romance.
