Dark Summer | Iris Johansen | fun romantic suspense thriller

Dark Summer | Iris Johansen | A good story of action and suspense with a few annoyances

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Dark Summer

	Dark Summer Iris Johansen St. Martin's Press, 2008 - 384 pages average customer review:based on 25 reviews view larger image
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It begins with a single shot.

Devon Brady is a devoted veterinarian working in a makeshift hospital on a remote search and rescue mission. When a man arrives with his wounded black Lab, Ned, she has no idea that she is about to be plunged into a whirlwind of terror and destruction.

Jude Marrock is out for revenge and has no choice but to involve Devon in a high-stakes cat-and-mouse game with an escalating body count. She doesn?t trust him one bit, but when the shots start flying and friends start falling, she finds herself with nowhere else to run. And there are innocent lives, both human and animal, at stake, including Ned and his mysterious pack. Is Jude her salvation or her damnation? Are the secrets he?s protecting worth killing for . . . or dying for?

With a lightning-fast pace, unforgettable characters, and gut-wrenching action, Dark Summer is compelling new terrain for this master storyteller.

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fun romantic suspense thriller

Six days ago the 7.5 earthquake devastated several villages on Santa Marina Island in the Caribbean. Former Navy SEAL Jude Marrok and his dog Ned are part of the Red Cross rescue effort hoping to find survivors. However, whereas Jude has given up in this small hamlet, Ned keeps searching when someone starts shooting at them; Ned is hit. Jude vows to find the sniper and rip out his or her heart after he takes his canine buddy to the rescue effort veterinarian Dr. Devon Brady.

Kingston reports to his superior Raymond Danner informing him he shot the dog, but Jude is unharmed. Raymond warns him to kill both or else; Kingston knows hunting the SEAL is safer

Jude brings Ned to Devon ordering her to fix his dog before vanishing like a magician. The note he left her says he will come for Ned as soon as he can. Devon and Ned return to her home in Colorado where his Caribbean caper follows Ned there. Jude arrives to protect his buddy, one of the "Dogs of Summer" while Danner and his business associates use her as a target to get to him.

Although over the top of the Pike's Peak and overloaded with too many angles, fans of Iris Johanson will enjoy her latest romantic suspense thriller due to the gender war between the battling buddies of Ned. The story line is fast-paced and loaded with non-stop action even as the various prime support cast groups at times seem overwhelming for the reader and Marrok to handle. Still, with Ned matchmaking and refereeing, DARK SUMMER is a fun read.

Harriet Klausner

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A good story of action and suspense with a few annoyances

Caring veterinarian and rescue worker Devon Brady becomes embroiled in a dark and dangerous situation when she agrees to care for a wounded rescue dog belonging to Marrok, a tense, controlling man with many mysteries. Devon soon finds herself (and everyone she cares about) in great danger and must trust Marrok--against her best judgment--to keep her safe.

This story of mystery and suspense is complex and, at times, bordering on unbelievable, but it kept my interest all the way through. I enjoyed the story and found the characters, even those who only serve as satellites to the main characters, well drawn and mostly likeable (the only character I disliked was Janet, whose diamond-in-the-rough nature I felt was so overdone that it rendered her obnoxious and unlikeable).

My disappointments in the story, which brought it down to 3 stars, were that:
1) In the midst of the action, the story devolves into a romance novel. If I was a person who enjoyed reading romance novels, that would be fine, but I'm not. There was quite a lot of hot sex in the story as well and, while that was well written, it got to be a bit much considering that everyone was in constant danger ("we're about to die; let's have sex!").
2) I found the final confrontation between Marrok and the "bad guy" hugely anti-climactic, especially given all the energy expended throughout the story to paint Danner as pure evil and to explain why there is such antagonism between the two of them.

If you don't like your suspense novels mixed with romance or are offended by graphic depictions of sexual encounters, this may not be the book for you. Otherwise, I recommend it as a fun diversion, especially if you are an animal lover (dogs figure prominently in the story).

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Just Okay!

The premise on which Dark Summer is based is interesting and often exciting. That is, Devon Brady is a devoted veterinarian working in a makeshift hospital at a search and rescue site. When Jude Marrok arrives with his wounded dog, Ned, Brady has no idea that she is about to be plunged into a whirlwind of terror, descruction and -- let's not forget Johansen's roots as a writer -- romance/passion. Johansen's overall execution of this premise, however, is just mediocre. While the plot, for the most part, moves along at a fast pace, Johansen's characters are thinly developed and the dialogue is often not very believable. All in all, Johansen , like James Patterson and some others, has become a "writing factory" whose main intent seems to get out several books a year rather than being focused on delivering quality to her fans. I was somewhat disappointed in Dark Summer. It's not that it is a bad book, it's just not one I would highly recommend.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

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