Review: 3 1/2 stars
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 10 17, 2013
THHR was a mixed bag for me; some elements of the story I really liked; and a couple of plot points drove me to distraction. Overall I liked the premise, I enjoyed the bantering between the main characters (primarily during the kidnapping) and I loved the heroine.Unfortunately, I mentally divided the book into 2 parts based on the plot points that drove me crazy. Part 1 was entitled: "The internet exists. Use it". Chase, a former Special Ops Military dude who spent 8 years in Afghanistan and then co-owned a security company agreed to take on a questionable at best kidnapping job without vetting the provided Intel. In this day and age where just about anyone can find out anything about anyone else, he chose to take serial killer Brian Sparrow on his word alone and a picture (because no one has heard of photo shopping). Well there was also the issue of his ex. wife having cheated on him, so all women are evil liars and Sparrow did warn Chase that Larissa "his wife" was a "devious and skillful liar and an Oscar worthy actress" so with all that proof why bother with any background checks. Larissa does her best to convince Chase that he is transporting her to her death; yet despite her efforts and his on-going disbelief, never once does she yell "Just google it! If you don't believe my story, GOOGLE IT"!! I don't know why she didn't yell that, I was yelling it in my head through the first half of the book.On a positive note Chase, in sexy black ski mask kidnapper persona was kind of hot (if not stupid); but this was a story where the hero took a back seat to the heroine for me. Larissa was awesome. She wasn't the girl I would want to be friends with; she was the girl I would want to be. She's a proficient brown belt in karate, she has a license to carry and is a decent shot, she's courageous, athletic and not afraid to use her skills, she changes her own tires, performs basic handyman household maintenance and she's feminine and sexy to boot. She also loves animals and acquires a pit bull puppy. She is the bomb! I think I fell in love with Larissa.That is, until I hit my mental dividing line about half way through and hit part 2, or what I liked to call "For the Love of God, GET A LAWYER"!!! Without giving away too much of the story, I'll just say I'm pretty sure the FBI are not allowed to badger,  harass and repeatedly accost witnesses in their own homes regardless as to whether or not they think the person is lying. The prosecutor can do the badgering in an actual court of law. The back and forth between Larissa and Detective Jarvis was very unbelievable and I kept waiting for her to yell "Not another word without my lawyer present". I don't know why she didn't yell that, because I kept yelling it in my head.I also found the post kidnapping part of the story to be a bit of a let down; because I do love an anti-hero - and without his sexy kidnapper persona going on, Chase was just "meh".... Although he was an animal lover and he totally gets points for that.In conclusion, I liked THHR and I read quickly because I wanted to see what happened (I REALLY wanted to see Chase's reaction when he realized "DUH! I was wrong, guess I should have one googled!"). I would have really liked it if I found the story overall more plausible.