The world can always use a few more heroes, but maybe it can do with fewer books about them.
In Locked and Loaded, the second of her Men of Delta Force series, Alexis Grant attempts to intertwine current events with romance and suspense; however, the plot is simply a rehash of the many books in this alpha male genre with the ending telegraphed from the very start. All that’s left is the romance. It’s a very tenuous thread on which to hang a story about drugs and the war on terrorism.
DEA agent Sage Wagner, determined to be a part of the war on drugs, lobbies her boss until he gives her the plum assignment of infiltrating the drug cartel of the Salazar Brothers. Wagner has a dark need for vengeance because the brothers are responsible for the deaths of her mother and two siblings. For her role, she transforms herself into the sexy Camille Rodriguez and becomes the undercover lover of drug kingpin Roberto Salazar.
The Salazars, though, have diversified their drug business, and Captain Anthony Davis, man of Delta Force, has been added to the team to ferret out how their drug money is turning into guns for Al Qaeda and the Taliban.
Davis and Wagner meet cute when he crosses her path without knowing her true identity.
For a split second their eyes met, assassin to assassin. She was the beauty he’d seen in the briefing and now held a nine-millimeter on him. Her hard brown gaze told him that she’d seen him stash the explosive. They both knew she had no problem pulling the trigger.
She’s fighting for vengeance; he’s fighting for patriotism, and soon they realize they’re working on the same side. Davis goes undercover as Juan and gets a job with the Salazars. But there is reason for Davis to worry for he is distracted by Sage/Camille.
Sage Wagner was a problem. She wasn’t just talented, capable, sexy, and smart—the woman had integrity. That was a rare quality these days.
Plus, wrapped inside all that professional armor was a woman with an injured heart and deeply wounded soul.
It would have been easier to deal with her if she was just some ice princess with a gun in her hand.
Despite the danger, Wagner and Davis fall in love faster than a speeding bullet.
In her arms were truth, justice, and the American way. She was a warrior and knew down to her marrow what he was. They didn’t have to talk about it or analyze it; they just had to live it.
But you don’t have to read it.
(You can read an excerpt of Locked and Loaded over at our sister site, Heroes and Heartbreakers.)
Susan Amper, author of How to Write About Edgar Allan Poe, still mourns the loss of her Nancy Drew collection.
“Sage Wagner was a problem. She wasn’t just talented, capable, sexy, and smart—the woman had integrity. That was a rare quality these days.” Are you sure the book isn’t meant as a parody?