Conservative radio talk show host Eve Reilly is used to getting hate mail, but one evening she encounters something a whole lot scarier, a bomb package on her doorstep. Eve calls 911 and while she waits for the police to arrive, she tries to make sure that her elderly neighbor Oliva gets to safety as well as her neighbor’s dog that she’s pet sitting. Rookie detective Brent Lange will be the officer investigating the case and trying to find out who hates Eve enough to want her dead.
This book has an interesting premise and some likable characters, but it also has some issues that take away or detract from the storyline.
What worked in this novel? I liked detective Brent Lange and I cared about the character. He seemed like a stand-up guy, loyal and dependable, who cared about people. I liked Eve’s sisters Grace and Cate, they seemed to genuinely care about their sister and were there for her during this crisis. I kind of, sort of liked Eve. I appreciated that Eve saw qualities in Brent that were admirable and that she tried to communicate with him in an effective way to draw him out. I rather liked the story told from different characters’ points of view, but with so many characters it got a bit much.
What didn’t work? There were a lot of characters in this book and too many potential suspects. There was Eve’s boss Doug and Carolyn a competitor who wanted Eve’s job. There was Eve’s assistant Meg Jackson and her husband Steve. Eve’s former boyfriend was a suspect. There’s a suspect that is not identified until later in the book and then there’s the brain behind the operation that is way out of left field. That one kind of stretched the imagination and that aspect of the storyline could have been better developed.
While the word Christian wasn’t specifically used to describe Eve, there were references to Eve going to church and praying. But there was not a lot in Eve’s behavior or words that would lead me to believe that she was a Christian. Some of the early scenes between Eve and Brent focused on their physical attraction, which seems particularly odd considering that she just had a bomb scare. I don’t think that Eve’s character was well developed, in part because the focus was on her words and actions. The character was a local conservative talk show host, not national, and that’s why it seemed odd that this local gal would be the target of a hate group. The relationship between Meg and her husband Steve went into some details that I found not appropriate in a book by a Christian author and publisher, as was the relationship between Doug and Carolyn.
There were some aspects of the Christian faith developed in Brent, but not so much with the other characters or storyline. That’s something I would have like to have seen focused on with the characters. One thing stood out towards the end of the novel, Eve’s sister Cate said, “Right or wrong, I’m not wasting any prayers for recovery on his behalf.” Really? This is not a Christian book, but it’s written by an author who is a Christian and published by Revell which publishes books by Christian authors. Should books published under a Christian banner be held to a different or higher standard? I think they should.
I like politics so that aspect of the book was interesting to me. But I thought adding the Antifa aspect in this story was probably not the best. The group was cleaned up compared to what people have seen on the news for the last few months. I found it was naive at best when they were described as using intimidation, carrying signs that said, “Down with Government Oppression”, and using smoke cartridges to emit smoke without causing harm.
I would like to thank Revell Publishing and NetGalley for the opportunity to read a complimentary copy of Point of Danger by Irene Hannon. I was under no obligation to give a favorable review.
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