Face of Danger
First impressions matter. Fortunately they don’t always presage what’s to come. My initial impression of Face of Danger was one of annoyed incredulity. The heroine, Vivi Angelino, said to “have some of the best investigative instincts around,” agrees to a contractual agreement even the most gullible of marks would question. The hero, Colton Lang, “an uptight Dudley Do-Right” FBI agent, engages in eye-poppingly nonsensical oral sex in an airplane with a scantily clad Vivi. At page 82, I detested this book. By its finish, however, I found it an enjoyable yarn.
Face of Danger is the third book in Roxanne St. Claire’s Guardian Angelinos series. I’ve not read the first two but didn’t need to for this book to make sense. The Guardian Angelinos is the name of a security firm run by Vivi and her twin Zach. (His story is told in the first book in the series Edge of Sight.) Vivi desperately wants her agency to make it to the big time. So, when she reads there’s a possible serial killer slaying actresses who’ve won the Oscar, she sees a way to fame and fortune. Vivi looks a lot like actress Cara Ferrari and Cara is up for best actress award. Vivi approaches Cara and proposes, if Cara wins, Vivi will impersonate her. The “Red Carpet Killer” will come after Vivi (believing she’s Cara), Cara will be safe, Vivi will bring in the killer and thus make her name in the security business. Cara agrees to the plan but swears Vivi to extreme secrecy: if Vivi tells anyone – including any law enforcement officers or family – she isn’t actually Cara, Cara will force Vivi to pay her ten million dollars. Vivi, inexplicably, agrees.
Cara wins the Oscar; Vivi begins to impersonate her, and immediately finds herself guarded by Colton who has been ordered by the FBI to protect Cara. (Colton has worked with Vivi on earlier jobs and the two are secretly attracted to one another.) Vivi, at first, tries to trick Colton into believing she’s Cara. She does this by stripping down to a few scraps of white lace and a pair of thigh high boots and giving Carter a lap dance like the one done by Cara in her first big movie role. The lap dance becomes a blow job and Colton, after coming so hard he almost breaks the armrests on his seat, knows it’s Vivi, not Cara, who just blew his, ah, mind. At this point, I was ready to discard the book.
Happily for me, once the plane lands in Nantucket where Vivi – being Cara – is staying, the book becomes more believable. Vivi and Colton work together (secretly so Cara won’t find out Vivi’s violated the terms of their contract) to solve the mystery of the Red Carpet Killer. The two realize there’s more involved than murdered actresses; they find themselves investigating human trafficking. The suspense part of this book is interesting and chaotic – rather like an enjoyable but improbable summer action film.
Vivi and Colton make a good couple once you get past their mile high interlude. Vivi, a skateboarder who never wears a dress, has avoided any real intimacy with men all her adult life. Colton, too, has a painful past and doesn’t want any relational connection beyond the physical. Vivi hides behind an abrasive, super-sassy personality; Colton behind his rulebook. The two are well-conceived foils. Vivi teaches Colton to let go and he teaches her to open up. I liked their relationship and found their HEA easy to understand and cheer for.
This book has a host of secondary characters who clearly have appeared in the first two books. Vivi and her brother are part of a large Italian, Boston-based family, some of whom veer perilously close to cliché. I imagine, though, for those invested in the Angelinos series, it’s nice to see glimpses into those pasta-filled lives.
At the end of the book, Ms. St. Claire, who has thrown out any number of intriguing candidates for the Red Carpet Killer, wraps up her book with a block-buster ending. Readers who enjoy high octane suspense will love her over-the-top finale. The identity of the killer isn’t a shock, but the reasons for the crimes committed in the book are more complex than I’d have guessed they’d be when I began reading. Really, everything in this book has more depth than its early scenes would credit. At page 82, I’d have given this book a solid D. By its end, I gave it a low B. I did find it hard to forgive the farcical fellatio but, ultimately, Face of Danger was a fairly fun read.