Stella Cameron: Glass Houses

Kensington (Hardcover), ISBN 1-57566-586-7

When his computer goes down, NYPD Detective Aiden Flynn (the hero’s friend in Stella Cameron’s Key West) uses the computer of his arch-enemy on the force to read his email. Aiden also reads and answers email photographer Olivia FitzDurham sends to the other man. The apparently endangered Olivia flees to New York and Aiden. English villains follow, ostensibly to retrieve some pictures Olivia snapped for a magazine — pictures they believe might reveal their nefarious and felonious deeds in the art world.

Aiden meets Olivia at the airport, and they start running, crossing the United States to Seattle with several stops along the way. The English villains and a number of their U.S. counterparts dog their heels with murderous intent.

I put off writing this review as long as I could. I even reread the book to see if my opinions remained the same. Sadly, they did.

First, even though a true Stella Cameron fan, I honestly could not deal with the silly heroine or the English set of villains — or any of the villains as far as that goes — in this romantic suspense novel.

Silly? Oh, yes, that word aptly describes Olivia FitzDurham. And it might not hurt to add “irritating.” She qualifies as that, too.

Fumbling, slapstick Laurel and Hardy wannabes, the English villains veer to the far side of humor, lapse into the non-amusing and destroy the believability of the plot. Even casting Aiden Flynn from Key West in the role of the hero couldn’t raise the excitement level.

Both the heroine and the bad guys adversely affected on my suspension of disbelief. They exposed the deficiencies of a contrived plot not up to Cameron’s usual high standards. Simply put, this book disappointed me, and I wanted to enjoy Glass Houses so much.

Patricia Lucas White

Patricia Lucas White’s latest historical novel, To Last a Lifetime, was an Eppie finalist for 2003. To Last a Lifetime and two of her fantasy romances, the Sapphire Award-winning A Wizard Scorned and The Godmother Sanction, can be ordered through Hard Shell Word Factory. Her recent contemporary, PS, I’ve Taken a Lover, is available from Lionhearted Books.