Author: Karen Robards
Publisher: Putnam
Publication Date: April, 2008
Genre: Romantic Suspense
Description: One cold November night when Kat Kominski was fifteen years old, she and some friends held up a convenience store. In the heat of the moment, one of the others shot and killed an off-duty cop moonlighting as a security guard. Kat and her pals fled the scene in a panic, and no one was caught.
Sixteen years later, Kat --- now Kate White --- has built a new life for herself. Now a single mom with an eight-year-old son, she works as a prosecutor in the Philadelphia DA's office. But her dark past rears its head when she walks into court one day and has a devastating encounter with a prisoner, Mario Castellanos, one of her companions from that terrible night.
Hardcore criminal Mario is facing a possible sentence of twenty years. He lets Kate know that he is counting on her, his old friend turned prosecutor, to make sure he goes free instead. If Kate doesn't do what he wants, he'll claim she was the one who killed the off-duty cop.
Kate is in a bind: If the truth about her past gets out, she stands to lose everything, including her son. But she can't do what Mario wants, either. As Mario ups his demands, blackmailing and terrorizing her, she is forced to turn for protection to a sexy homicide detective, Tom Braga, who suspects her of ... something. The two clash repeatedly as Tom keeps digging into her past, trying to learn the truth.
Then another, far more menacing, threat rears its head, and Kate realizes that her life --- and her son's --- are in terrible danger. Frantic, she sees that she has nowhere to turn. Except, maybe, to Tom ...
My Thoughts: I had a hard time connecting with the main character of this story. The story begins with Kat as a teenager who gets caught up with a bad crowd and bad choices that result in the death of an off-duty police officer. Kat pulls her life together and in spite of being a single parent, she puts herself through law school and is a new prosecutor. Ordinarily, this would be a success story, but when her past catches up to her, Kat begins telling lie after lie, even when she is blatantly confronted, she continues to lie. I quickly became annoyed with her and had a hard time feeling much sympathy for her. The story improved when Kat’s son, Ben, is in mortal danger from some very bad people and Kat finally comes clean to Tom.
I really liked Ben and Tom. I thought Ben was very precocious and adorable. Tom was a great character who is carrying some very painful baggage, but manages to keep his heart open to the possibility of a new relationship. In spite of the lies and deception Kat throws at his feet, he continues to be there for her.
My Final Verdict: Overall, this story was just OK for me. The ending fell flat with little closure and a lot of gaps. Fans of romantic suspense may be able to overlook the lack of character development and enjoy the story but if you are a reader who needs the characters in their stories to be realistic, then this may not be the book for you.
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