This Good Man
Janice Kay Johnson
Harlequin SuperRomance, Sep
2 2014, $6.75
ISBN: 9780373608683
Filled with guilt, Family Violence Unit police captain Reid Sawyer
returns to the Spokane area when he learns he has a much younger teenage
half-brother Caleb. Reid assumes his
violent dad, who battered him and his mother including getting away with uxoricide,
would do likewise with his surly fifteen years offspring whose mom abandoned
him three years ago. Reid says he is
damaged so cannot take Caleb with him, but offers to place him with friends off
the grid until he turns eighteen. Reid
takes a position with the Angel Butte’s Police Department before taking a
battered Caleb to live with the couple Roger and Paula Hale who saved his life
decades ago.
When social worker Anna Grant demands ABPD search for a thirteen
years old runaway, Reid intervenes and orders his officer to look for the
kid. Meanwhile, he and Anna are
attracted to each other, but though it could cost him his job, Reid conceals
from her where he hid Caleb in order to protect the kind Hale couple and to
keep his brother safe. He is unaware
that Anna’s traumatic childhood in the foster care system left her damaged and
her sister dead.
The fourth Mysteries Of Angel Butte (see Cop By Her Side, Bringing
Maddie Home and Everywhere She Goes) is a timely (NFL) character-driven police
procedural mindful of the Law & Order: Special Victims
Unit as the storyline takes a deep look at the impact of child abuse. The lead couple share in common love for each
other, dedication to their jobs and damaged psyches from their troubled
childhood. Leisurely-paced with the
romance taking a back seat to the abuse plot, Janice Kay Johnson
provides an intense drama.
Harriet Klausner
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