1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
The Strong, Silent Type, August 11, 2000
This review is from: Strong, Silent Type (Harlequin Intrigue Series) (Paperback)
Jule McBride, an author known for her lighter romances, makes her second trip to Intrigue with "The Strong Silent Type." On the day of Alice Eastman's wedding to Dylan Nolan, Dylan vanishes, her maid of honor is found murdered, and a little witness names Dylan as the killer. Two years later a stranger with familiar eyes arrives on her doorstep. Has Dylan come home? Is he a killer?
McBride uses several of the same devices she did in "Wed to a Stranger?" (Intrigue 418). A husband returns with a different face, a wife doesn't know whether to trust him. It's been done before and can work, but McBride's treatment of it here is much less plausible. The number of contrivances and coincidences used to keep the story going and the characters from learning the truth is aggravating. I spent too much of the story thinking, "I'm not buying any of this."
McBride's writing is smooth, although it does have a lighter feel that prevents any real sense of danger from building. It does help carry the reader past some of the more hard to swallow aspects for a while, until the book completely unravels in the final fifty pages. Out of nowhere, the heroine is convinced the hero is the killer. The hero is convinced he's the killer. They whine and cry and wring their hands, and all the reader can do is scream in frustration. Of course, we know Dylan isn't the killer. (That should not be considered a spoiler. The day a Harlequin hero turns out to be a psychopathic killer is the day Harlequin goes out of business.) Other writers have managed to create a sense of suspense where we really have to wonder, but it never seems possible here. Most readers will have figured out the only possible solution long before. It cannot be more obvious, yet the characters never seem to catch on. This reader's patience with the story and the characters ran out long before the climax, when one of the figures it out, conveniently, at the last possible moment.
Many readers will appreciate the glimpse McBride offers of Dylan and Alice's relationship before the wedding, so we can see what they are trying to recapture. The romance is generally well done until the characters turn into idiots. An annoying read.
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1.0 out of 5 stars
Not romantic, not suspenseful--a "slasher" horror, October 1, 2010
This review is from: Strong, Silent Type (Harlequin Intrigue Series) (Paperback)
Since I'm a psychiatrist, it really irritates me when a author uses a psychopathic killer as a plot device, but that's as far as it goes. In order for a novel to have a "good' psychopathic villain, at some level the villain's actions have to make some kind of emotional sense and the reader needs to be able to glimpse the heart and mind of the villain for it to be a good thriller. This novel was like a slasher movie where the whole thing was loosely tied together by violent and bloody acts performed by the hero's brother. The idea that the hero has plastic surgery that changes his face so that he is unrecognizable by people who knew him and that his brother gets the identical surgery is just ludicrous. I didn't like any of the characters or care what happened to any of them because the whole story was so unbelievable, particularly because at times the hero and his wife think that he might be the killer. I'm glad that I purchased this used at a charity thrift store because they got the money and then the book went in the trash.
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0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
The Eyes Don't Lie..., June 28, 2008
This review is from: Strong, Silent Type (Harlequin Intrigue Series) (Paperback)
Alice Eastman didn't recognize the sinewy body or raven locks of the unidentified man hit by a car on her Wyoming ranch. But his eyes were unmistakably Dylan Nolan, her childhood sweetheart, her only lover, her husband, who'd disappeared without a trace the day of their wedding - accused of murder....
But like the strong, silent type, Dylan neither confirmed nor denied his identity or his innocence. Only his body spoke to hers in the dead of night, professing love, promising protection. For one thing was certain; Someone was out there, stalking Dylan and his bride. And Alice didn't know if she was in more danger from the man who hunted the icy mountains for his prey...or the sinfully sexy husband who ignited her passion.
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