ON THE LOOSE

Author: Tara Janzen ISBN: 044024384X 11/2007 SUSPENSE Publisher: DELL

Keeping cool under pressure is the credo C. Smith Rydell lives by. That is, until he finds out about his latest mission playing bodyguard to a blond in a black string bikini. Except Honey York isn't your average pampered socialite. She's the woman Rydell caught smuggling cash into El Salvador four months ago. And now she wants him to take her back. All Honey has to do is find the guerrilla camp, deliver the goods, and get the hell out of the jungle—all in forty-eight hours. And with bullets flying, now is not the time for passion. As if these two could possibly resist it.

RRAH's THOUGHTS AND PONDERINGS:

Tara Janzen's ON THE LOOSE takes a slight detour from her Crazy series—but not too far. Smith and Honey made their first appearance as secondary characters in a previous Crazy book, wherein Honey was trying to get some money to her sister and Smith helped her out of some sticky situations. ON THE LOOSE starts out with Honey needing Smith's help again, only this time Honey gets his help through more formal channels. The government has told her they have forty-eight hours to complete a deal with guerrillas in El Salvador or she can't come back into the country.

I'm a huge fan of all of Ms. Janzen's Crazy books, but ON THE LOOSE was not as good to me. The interaction between Honey and Smith is great, but there are so many subplots going on that just as soon as things started really flowing with the two lead characters, the story shifted to other secondary characters. There were at least two other stories going on simultaneously to Honey and Smith's, with all three stories coming together in the end. I found these other stories distracting.

ON THE LOOSE follows the basic idea of the Crazy series with lots of action and chemistry, but it just didn't quite hit the same "can't put it down" note that the earlier books did. However, if you are a fan of the Crazy series, you'll probably like this one as well.

April Luth