This RITA® Reader Challenge 2015 review was written by Library Addict. This story was nominated for the RITA® in the Short Contemporary Romance category.
The summary:
“I warned you this would be dangerous.”
Trouble has a way of finding me. This time I’m hunting it down—bartending at After Dark, Kansas City’s most exclusive gentleman’s club. It’s a world I’ve tried hard to escape. But the plush interior and secluded booths are a front for an illegal sex ring, tied to my sister’s disappearance. And before I can locate Megan, I have to get past big, sexy Josiah Kemp.
The usual tricks—flirty smiles, subtle touches—don’t seem to be working on Josiah. Something in his dark gaze says he knows my secrets…and has a few of his own. Learning he’s an undercover cop posing as a bouncer complicates things, but he’s the kind of man you want on your side—and everywhere else. With his help, I know I can get answers. Even if it takes a few rounds between the sheets to get them.
Here is Library Addict's review:
This book is part of Harlequin Intrigue NOIR, a digital-first line. The book was originally titled The Precinct: After Dark and is set in the world of Miller’s fictional Fourth Precinct. Her long-running The Precinct series for Harlequin Intrigue started back in 2005 and includes over 25 books. But unlike many of her miniseries within The Precinct series, this book totally works as a stand-alone.
The heroine’s teenaged sister has gone missing and she puts her life on hold to go undercover as a bartender at a strip club because she thinks her sister may have fallen victim to a modeling scam, which is really a front for sex traffickers. Or something. It made little sense why she decided she needed to work there and the heroine had several borderline TSTL moments at the beginning, as her subtle attempts to get information were in no way subtle. But on a positive note, she acknowledged her mistakes, if only to herself.
The hero is legitimately undercover at the club. The KCPD knows there are shenanigans going on there, but doesn’t have enough solid proof to obtain a warrant to search the back rooms or wiretap the offices. Although she’s better at infiltrating the bad guy’s organization, the heroine easily figures out he’s a cop (because she couldn’t possibly be so sexually attracted to a villain) and suddenly they’re teaming up, because she can get into places and ask people questions as a female bartender that he cannot as head of the club’s legitimate security. Or something. I had a difficult time buying into this particular set up. Miller has written much better suspense plots than this one.
The bad guys started off as organized and ruthless but turned into contenders for the World’s Dumbest Criminals in the end. They managed to not only run a human trafficking ring but the strip club front for years and suddenly they turn into the villains of the week from Scooby Doo.
But despite my numerous issues with the plot—which was a hot mess—I really liked the heroine. Even when she was putting herself in dangerous situations seemingly without a care for her own safety. She’d been a teenage runaway, had done what she had to do to survive, and had worked hard to turn her life around. She was unapologetic about her past and the fact she would manipulate or use anyone to find out the truth and rescue her sister. There was a lot of backstory brought up but not fully explored. And despite numerous scenes from the hero’s POV, I felt we only got hints about who he was. The book needed to be longer to explore the various character elements which were introduced. The romance works as a HFN, but I wanted more. Still the groundwork was there for a HEA with more time.
This is a difficult book to rate, but I’ll give it a B- for the heroine.
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