Catherine Coulter, Point Blank/FBI Series

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Point Blank by Catherine Coulter

Category: Peanut M&M - Devour, sigh, then reach for the next one. My daily dose of insanity-be-gone. Most books fall in this category. (A-,B+,B)
Flame Height: 0", off

I've always loved Catherine Coulter's FBI series. The first one, The Cove, was deliciously off beat and suspenseful. She really hit her stride with The Maze where we meet Savich and Sherlock and I have to tell you that their first skin to skin scene had me panting out loud in anticipation! What a build-up! PHEW! And what a great thriller! It remains my favorite book of hers. All of her main characters have a sarcastic, playful wit and she brings some of them back from book to book; Savich and Sherlock in every book. It's kind of like going on an adventurous road trip with old friends.


The paperback for her latest, Point Blank, is now available from Amazon:
"From Publishers Weekly Coulter's new thriller romance (Blowout, etc.) opens with Ruth Warnecki lost in a cave in rural Virginia while fellow (married) FBI agents Dillon Savich and Lacey Sherlock are hot on the tail of a psychotic dirty old man (Moses Grace) and his flirtatious teenage partner (Claudia), who've kidnapped a smalltime comedian. Coulter fans know if they suspend belief—really suspend belief—she'll deliver page-turners filled with good guys battling bad guys as well as enjoying domestic tranquility. After Ruth makes it out of the cave, she's cared for by Dixon Noble, the local sheriff and ex-New Yorker with two kids and a missing wife; then Ruth and the gang return to the cave to discover the body of a murdered music student. Lacey and Dillon consult MAX the miracle computer about Moses while Dix introduces Ruth to his domineering father-in-law, Chappy, and musician Gordon, Chappy's geriatric lech of a brother. Coulter alternates between the search for the student's killer and the hunt for Moses, cases tied together only by the FBI agents solving them and the theme of criminally insane grumpy old men. Coulter continues to prove more convincing describing virtue than vice, which means that sympathetic characters and happy endings take precedence over serious detective work."

This one has two central, very fast paced storylines, neither one can be considered secondary to the other. What's interesting is that we really don't have a romance in this book. Dix's wife disappeared 3 years earlier and he's been mourning her and raising two sons. Ruth has him thinking that he might be ready to start accepting the fact the his wife is gone for good. A quick kiss is as close as Ruth and Dix get to romance. Of course Dillon and Sherlock are still wildly in love, but the closest we get to a romance with them is an afterglow scene.

Yes I do miss Ms. Coulter's marvelous build-up of sexual tension between her characters. But since she writes one hellaciously enjoyable thriller, I'm more than willing to overlook it.

I recommend this book if you enjoy thrillers, just don't expect it to be a romance.