Rainbow Reviews

BOOK BLURB:
When veterinarian Jeremy Reed hears a thump one night on his front step, he expects to find an abandoned animal. What he gets is battered and broken cop Brendan Wheeler. Kidnapped from his apartment five days earlier by an unknown man, Brendan now sports a vivid tattoo across his back depicting a young woman’s death, a woman nobody knows.

Until the next morning when Jeremy discovers her dead body.

Brendan wants to find the killer. Jeremy wants Brendan to survive. And someone wants both of them to pay.

BOOK REVIEW:
I’m a real sucker for wounded heroes, and Brendan fits the bill nicely. The cruel treatment he receives at the hands of his kidnapper certainly would win a prize for originality. I loved how while at his most vulnerable Jeremy found Brendan, took him in and nursed him. Don’t get me wrong, Brendan didn’t just take Jeremy’s ministrations meekly, he fretted at his enforced inactivity.

Jeremy was perhaps less well drawn. A busy vet, good at his job, he is respected by his patients’ owners. The attraction he feels for Brendan goes beyond the purely physical, a good thing given Brendan’s bloody situation at first.

And if wounded heroes get me sitting up and taking notice, strong but lovable dogs have me standing up and saluting. Raider, though not given too big a role in the story, was the star as far as I was concerned.

The reasoning behind the tattoo was curious and complicated. Brendan’s kidnapper believed he had a beef with the cop, but why tattoo a woman on his back? It’s reasonable to believe the kidnapper is probably mentally deficient, but is that enough to explain his weird actions? I found myself concentrating more on the growing relationship between Brendan and Jeremy, so the mildly unsatisfactory mystery didn’t bring the book down too much.

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