I've loved many of Linda Howard's novels, but this one was far from her best. There were few characters and the reader sees few of the interactions with secondary characters that create the landscape of the main characters' lives. The character development of the half dozen primary characters doesn't really help you feel how they got to be the people they are (good, bad, or ugly), nor is the abrupt about-face of one character understandable. The "who-done-it" of the plot was easily anticipated, but, again, not really terribly plausible. There just wasn't any other choice for the villain of the piece. I suggest getting this one from the library, as I am glad I did.

I'm beginning to feel like Linda Howard is ust cranking out books to fulfill contract obligations. This book was boring and so choppy and unsuspenseful. Bring back the Linda Howard who wrote "Mr. Perfect" and "Dream Man". Her last few books have been just awful!

Bailey Wingate appears to be a stone-cold Trophy Wife, but everything is not as it seems. Cam "Captain Sourpuss" Justice is the pilot flying Bailey to Denver. He comes across as humorless and emotionless, but again, appearances can be deceiving. While enroute to Denver, their plane crashes and they must drop their defenses to band together to survive. Once those walls come down, danger of another variety emerges ... danger of the heart.

What I liked about this book:
Cam and Bailey. Their personalities and their sense of humor had me chuckling several times. The developing relationship between them felt natural because they were so suited for each other.

One of the secondary characters really grabbed me, Karen the office assistant. I absolutely loved her. She was gruff, no-nonsense, and had the best deadpan humor. I could just picture her bossing around her "bosses" and them doing everything in their power to not get on her bad side.

What I didn't like about this book:
I would have liked to have gotten to know Seth, Tamzin, and Bret better.

The ending felt anti-climatic to me. Without giving away any secrets, I would have expected more fireworks after Cam and Bailey got back to civilization. It almost felt like I was missing a couple chapters at the end.

While this was not Linda Howard's best book, those in my opinion would be "Mr. Perfect, Cry No More, Open Season; it was definitely not her worst. And let's face it, even a bad Linda Howard is far better than much of what is being passed off as "romance" these days.

Several reviewers have made some negative comments about her last couple of novels. I disagree, I loved "Killing Time" and "Cover of Night". "Inferno", while a category romance, was also very good.

I don't think the problem is that Linda Howard is losing her touch. I suspect that she is getting the same pressure many of the established romance authors are getting, and it shows in their writing in subtle ways. Since the popularity of "Romantica" / "Erotica" has exploded, publishers are pushing the developed authors to follow suit, and trying to pass off "Romantica" / "Erotica" as mainstream Romance. The two genres are distinctly different.

I actually wasn't as disappointed with this latest Linda Howard novel as some of the other reviewers. I'm probably in the minority here, but I followed Ms Howard reluctantly when she started writing romantic thriller/horror novels in hardback. I generally avoid novels or movies that revolve around the mental ravings of psychotic serial killers and although I absolutely agree that Mr Perfect and Dream Man are Howard at her very best -- they both gave me nightmares. So I'm glad she's kinda/sorta getting back to her romance roots and writing stories where no one gets brutally and senselessly killed.

I think the problem here is that expectations weren't met. I don't know how it went down, but here's how it looks. Linda Howard wrote a typical 250 page formulaic series romance (think Silhouette), then (possibly with her editor's urgings) she added a lot of survival filler (building the shelter in excruciating detail twice!) and the entire Seth subplot to bring the length up to the final 325 pages needed to publish in hard back. A better hardback novel would have fleshed out Seth a lot more, toned down the evil sister, developed Bret, Karen and Karen's boyfriend as real characters and maybe added a couple more characters into the stew and made a real whodunit out of the plot. But a shorter 250 page series romance would have been just fine published as a paperback (and I would have given it 4 stars). As it is written, the thinness of the characterization and plot just aren't up to hard back prices and expectations.

My all time favorite Howard (jungle) survival book with bad guys is Heart of Fire and a very close second is Midnight Rainbow (a Silhouette publication). But I think Linda Howard has done the survival thing now and she needs to find something else.

p.s. the chemistry between the two lovers was so "off" in this book that I was relieved that the 2nd sexual encounter was described simply as (and I paraphrase) "they made love again that night". (No shelter, still cold, on the side of a cliff?). Fans may howl, but I think that the book would have been a LOT more interesting if they had not had sex at all while they were in survival mode... at least there could have been some sexual tension generated out of that!

p.p.s. the novel's title was totally off and so was the book jacket cover art. Whatever the title and the art was describing, it was not the book that Howard wrote.

Ms. Howard has always been one of my favorite authors and after reading some promising reviews I took the chance and purchase a Hardcover novel. I should have taken heed with one of the critics who said wait for the paperback, because indeed this was the most monotonous novel I have ever read. Publishers should not put too much pressure on authors just to keep deadlines because it would just be met with disastrous results. Unlike Ms. Howard's earlier work where the anti-climactic element would keep a reading going, Up Close and Dangerous (so much for the dramatic title!)was so far from achieving a momentum.
In addition, the perpetrator was obvious from almost the get go.
Hopefully Ms. Howard would have a better material and not give in to deadlines next time.