Get out the squee mop because I loved Playing Dirty by HelenKay Dimon like whoa. This is the kind of romantic suspense I love so much: action oriented, low on violence, loaded with larger-than-life heroes and sexytimes.

See, here’s the thing: 1. I love action movies and 2. I love romantic suspense that reads like an action movie. I don’t dislike detective stories, but I’m less and less excited about books that feature a shitload of violence. I’m less about the serial killer than I am about Raymond Reddington (why is James Spader sexy? Why?).

I want the action-movie fantasy all while knowing the heroine is going to be fine. In my head when she’s kidnapped by the baddies, she’s not going be raped; she’s going to be put in front of the TV with a Slurpie because the thugs aren’t really that awful, they’re just doing this pay for their mom’s dialysis, okay?

Also, I love espionage and undercover stories. I was really pissed when Human Target was canceled. I love all the Bonds (except Roger Moore who I pretend was never involved in the franchise) and sometimes I watch Daniel Craig rise up out of the Caribbean in a wee-little Speedo to make myself feel better.

I want Jason Bourne to drive me around Paris in a Mini Cooper at unsafe speeds. Ich habe meine papiere verloren! I don’t care for Mission Impossible because I think Tom Cruise is a douchewizard, but then again Jeremy Renner did flex his ass for us in the last movie, so maybe I need to rethink that.

I’m telling you all this because Playing Dirty hits ALL THOSE BUTTONS. It’s composed entirely of Elyse-catnip.

The story is about Ford, a spy for the Alliance, a joint CIA and MI-6 agency (FYI the Alliance is run by a woman–Fuck, Yeah). Ford and his team are following intelligence indicating that a deadly toxin has been stolen by terrorists. The toxin is extremely lethal and an aerosol so you can do that math and come up with “Oh, shit.”

The man who developed the poison is a young scientist with some narcissistic anger-issues named Trent. He’s also the one who smuggled the toxin out of the lab and is now missing. Ford needs to know if he’s baddie or he’s being used in some way and find the toxin.

Part of Ford’s job in tracking down the toxin is to get close to Trent’s cousin (they were raised like siblings), Shay Alexander. Shay is a property manager living in DC, and Ford moves in across the hall from her, pretending to be a IT guru of some kind.

Ford is supposed to get to know Shay and to secretly pump her for information (yeah, I went there) about her cousin and determine her level of involvement if any. He gets trapped in the honey trap, though. There’s much sexytimes and he starts to fall for Shay, hard.

For her part, Shay goes from meeting this super hot guy and falling in love, to feeling like her life is coming apart. Her cousin is missing and she doesn’t know why. Shay knows Trent is troubled and kind of an asshole, but she has no idea what he’s really involved in. She tries to help him, not knowing that it makes her look complicit in a terrorist act. She also really likes Ford, but her Spidey-Sense tells her something is not right with the guy. All sorts of secrets and half-truths and WTF moments build up around her.

I liked that Shay handled all of this like I would imagine a normal person would. She doesn’t turn into a super-action queen herself because that’s not who she is. She doesn’t become a sobbing victim either. She relies on common sense and her own strength to get through.

And I LOVED Ford. He’s a big, tough romantic suspense hero without being a giant alpha-hole. In fact all of Dimon’s heroes hit the right mark of sexy/tough/badass without being an over-protective dickbag for me. That’s why she’s on my auto-buy list.

Also there’s this line:

Not that he didn’t like the sitting and bullshitting that went with the surveillance, but while they were all captive in a twenty-four-foot van, Ford thought it seemed like a decent time to fill in the pieces of his afternoon. “Unlike you guys who just sat around knitting all day–“

“That’s offensive,” Reid said in his most serious voice. “There’s nothing wrong with dudes knitting.”

Fuck, Yeah.

Playing Dirty is also action-driven, with excellent pacing. I felt like I gobbled this book down in record time, only to realize my neck hurt because I’d been sitting in the exact same position for one glorious OM-NOM-NOM session until it was done.

I think the only thing that might potentially bother readers is that a lot of the book, at least half, is centered around Ford and his team trying to find the toxin. For a romance, Shay and Ford don’t spend as much time together as is typical. I loved the suspense plot and Ford and all the heroes so much though, that it totally worked for me. Plus I didn’t think it detracted from the romance at all.

So could you tell I really loved this book? You may commence squee-mopping now. To conclude, I leave you with this:

You’re welcome.