Touch of Red by Laura Griffin is actually the twelfth book of the Tracers series, but you do not need to have read all of the books in the series to dive in because each book can be read as a standalone. However, you will miss seeing glimpses of some of your favorite couples if you haven’t read the whole series. I have not read the entire series and would like to remedy this! I do want to thank Netgalley and the publisher for giving me the opportunity to read this book in advance of its release. Of course, that does not impact my opinion in any way.
This series is absolutely perfect for October and really any time you want to scare yourself a little and Touch of Red is no exception. This particular installment of the Tracers series follows Sean, our cop hero, and Brooke, a crime scene investigator tech at Delphi (I think her expertise is DNA or fingerprints, maybe?). The book opens with a really gruesome crime scene and Brooke is basically competency porn as she gets her job done. Sean shows up and you can tell that he’s attracted to Brooke in no small part because of how good she is at her job.
I found this one particularly compelling because of how much I love Sean as a character. I think he’s a really great hero and the book contains a passage that discusses his tenderness as evidence of his strength. Too often heroes in romance who are cops can be cocky and overbearing, but I really feel like Sean balanced his concern over Brooke and her actions with reason and logic. Although, for once, I was inclined to agree with Sean. Brooke had a tendency to be reckless with her safety and since she was working with the police, I just kept thinking through how the motion to suppress hearing was going to go and feeling really bad for Rachel (the DA) who would have to argue it. Of course, my experience reading this as a lawyer (really, it’s official now! I’m sworn in and everything!) and a non-law person reading this is going to be totally different.
I had two qualms with this book was that Brooke’s ex-boyfriend is kind of stalking her and the way it’s dealt with is just… a little absurd, frankly. I took off a star for this, but again, my opinion of how this is handled is largely influenced by my background, which is focused heavily on domestic and sexual violence.
The second was that Sean has this hissy fit about having to follow the Constitutional rules regarding evidence collection basically, when the DA is explaining them and this bothered me a lot. Once again, my background makes my reading of this book different and I don’t think it’s something that’s likely to impact a non-law person’s reading of this book.
Overall though, I highly recommend this book! It was so good and had me on the edge of my seat! Definitely a perfect romantic suspense book to read around Halloween!
xx
firewhiskeyreader 