Review - - A Dangerous Game

A Dangerous Game
By Heather Graham
New York Confidential - Book 3
Publisher: MIRA
Release Date: March 13, 2018
Reviewed by PJ
 

Wrapping up a normal day at the office, criminal psychologist Kieran Finnegan is accosted by a desperate woman who shoves an infant into her arms and then flees, only to be murdered minutes later on a busy Manhattan street.

Who was the woman? Where did the baby come from? Kieran can’t stop thinking about the child and the victim, so her boyfriend, Craig Frasier, does what any good special agent boyfriend would do—he gets the FBI involved. And asks Kieran to keep out of it.

But the Finnegans have a knack for getting into trouble, and Kieran won’t sit idle when a lead surfaces through her family’s pub. Investigating on her own, she uncovers a dangerous group that plays fast and loose with human lives and will stop at nothing to keep their secrets—and they plan to silence Kieran before she can expose their deadly enterprise.

I love a good romantic suspense journey that keeps me riveted to the pages and on the edge of my seat. This book had the potential to be just that but unfortunately, for me, it fell a bit short. The crux of the mystery and relevant topic associated with it (human slavery) are well plotted but too many tangents with a plethora of characters slowed the pace and left me struggling to keep reading instead of struggling to put the book down. Part of the problem might be that I haven't read the first two books in the series. Perhaps the characters of Kieran and Craig are fleshed out in those books and I would have felt more connected, been more invested in their relationship, and not found the heroine so annoying, if I had read those books first. 

To be fair, there are sections of the book where the intensity is strong and the pace is good. I like an author who keeps me guessing and it did take me awhile to figure out who the villains were. There are also topics in the book that we need to be discussing (human trafficking and diversity) though while the trafficking is an intrinsic part of the plot there are times when the diversity issue feels more like a lecture than an organic part of the story. There seems to be a lot of tell rather than show in this book. 

Overall, for me, A Dangerous Game was a middle-of-the-road romantic suspense story, with emphasis on the suspense, that wasn't bad but could have been better.