Nightshade

Colt Nightshade is an investigator with a shady past, he worked for a government agency and now he does some investigative work. This time the job is for a friend, Liz is the daughter of a friend and she ran away. Her parents are very worried about her, more worried now they've received news that she's been coerced into making sadistic films.

Colt needs some help from local law enforcement and turns to his friend Fletcher Boyd who is chief of police. Fletch gets his investigator Althea Grayson to help him, or him to help her, rather. The two of them begin to spark and the investigation starts to get murkier.

It's an interesting story, lots of adventure and I liked Colt. He was caring and concerned, (whats not to like about a guy who can cook?). She resists hard but this is a romance, whats to be expected?

I enjoyed the read. You can see where Nora Roberts is growing out of the confines of a Mills & Boon formula and where her wings are starting to grow. ( )

This is the third book in the Night series.

Colt Nightshade is... well, he's a lot of things, but right now he's searching for a friend's runaway daughter. And to find her, he's got to team up with police lieutenant Althea Grayson.

The first thing that strikes me is that a LOT of things in this book remind me of the In Death books: The sugared almonds, Sweeney/Feeney, heck--Althea became an orphan at age 8! And of course, she's a police lieutenant who survived childhood abuse.

By the way, this came out in 1993, two years before Naked in Death.

And the scene where she & Colt rescue the little girl---definitely seems like a foreshadowing of the first scene in Naked in Death. In this one, Althea is upset because SHE didn't rescue the girl, and she feels like she should have been able to. The scene in Naked is similar, but with the
emotion, tension, and lethality increased. In fact, I'd say this book and Night Shadow are both the precursors to In Death---Night Shadow with Roarke, Nightshade with Eve. The Night books are the In Death books tamed & softened to fit inside SIM covers.

I particularly liked (and nobody will be surprised by this) the respect and partnership between Althea and Colt, and that even though Colt was ready to move the relationship along sooner than Althea was, and he did push her, he wasn't patronizing or paternal, both of which traits tend to pop up among romance heroes with distressing (to me, at least) regularity.

I also liked that despite their differences, and Althea not being happy about being asked to work with a civilian, that she tried to be fair (specifically thinking about the snitch who was killed at the beginning--she let Colt know she didn't blame him for that).

So, all in all a nice read, and a trial run, I think, for the In Death series. Worth reading as part of the series, but not one of my favorites. ( )