Sep 27 2006
REVIEW: Hard Evidence by Pamela Clare
Dear Ms. Clare:
It makes me kind of sad to write this letter as your historical books are so strong. I also think that your first book in this loosely related series was received well. This book had all the trappings of a good story but it never managed to work together for me. The concept is compelling: an investigation to bring to a close the use of underage minorities, mostly illegal immigrants, for prostitution. There is really no greater despicable act that to violate the weak and innocent in such a way.
Julian Darcangelo worked for the FBI and was close two years ago to identifying and arresting Burien who was thought to be the head of underage, illegal prostitution ring. Due to circumstances that aren’t fully explained until the latter part of the story, Julian lost a couple of agents, his investigation and he gave up on his job. 2 years later, Burien resurfaces in Denver and Julian is invited to be a special investigator on the scene.
Tessa Novak, a young investigative reporter, is trying to make her mark in Denver. She hasn’t had a good story in the three years she’s been in Denver but her journalism career is about to take a dramatic turn. While getting coffee one morning, a barefoot Hispanic girl runs in and asks for help. Seconds later, a vehicle drives and someone shoots the girl. Tessa decides to start a series of first person accounts about the murder and her investigation of it. Tessa and Julien butt heads as it becomes obvious that the murder she witnessed and the prostitution ring Julien is investigating overlaps.
Again, the storyline, the conflict, all sounds good. It was the execution of the story that fell flat. Tessa sees Julien just outside the coffee shop after the murder. She believes that he may be involved in the murder. During their first encounter, he grabs her, drags her into a closet, gropes her and then kisses her. Of course, she responds sexually.
Tess had felt his .357, had thought he meant to use it, and when he’d kiss her, her fear had tranformed into lust.
I hate this ploy. I don’t think it is believable. If you believe that someone is a bad, bad person why are you responding physically? Wouldn’t you be scared to death? It strains my credulity which is all important in these romantic suspense novels.
The attraction seems forced throughout the book. The characters were together because you, the author, wanted them to be together. Not because there was any chemistry between the two. Plus the heroine is virtually “untouched” because of one asshole she slept with in college. Listen, everyone has bad sexual experiences in college. It’s part of the college experience. This one experience, however, turns her off of sex forever. Until Julien threatens her and feels her up in a closet. And there seems to be character inconsistencies. Tess grew up dirt poor but she references years of charm school and deportment at one time.
Then there is Julien who grew up on the lam with his dad. But his dad had enough money to pay for a prostitute to have sex with 15 year old Julien. Julien then falls in love with the prostitute for some period of time but is ultimately disillusioned from the whole love thing when he finds the prostitute with his dad. Oh horrors. She was a PROSTITUTE. This and one other incident gives the reason why Julien doesn’t believe in love.
The hamfisted characterizations (all told in the space of two paragraphs) is boring at best but worse, its dull and unimaginative. In a weird writing technique, you refer to two characters by only one name. It was like they were Sunny and Cher. Only they weren’t. They actually had last names. You just never used them to create some aura of suspense.
What ticked me off the most was Tessa’s constant TSTL actions. Despite being told that she was a target of the bad guys and then even after suffering an attack by the bad guys, she still goes into the dangerous parts of the town to try to get her story. When the characters act TSTL, generally I am hoping something bad happens to them. But nothing bad happens to the TSTL character. It’s always the other person who is hurt which makes me like the TSTL even less. I know you are gong to say that the pursuit of the story is all important as a journalist but this just was not sold for me. Maybe if I had seen more discussion of that I would have believed it but in this case, Tessa just seemed foolish.
To further feed my dislike of Tessa, you portray her as someone that even the hard core chief of police loves. And half of the police station. I have a hard time believing that an investigative reporter is going to be loved by the police.
I think I’ll just stick with your historicals. C- for this one. I wonder what Kristie(J) will think of it. She’s a big fan of yours.
Best regards,
Jane
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Sep 27, 2006 @ 06:46:50
C- Yikes, I’ve already got this one on order.
Sep 27, 2006 @ 08:04:04
Hopefully you will like it better than I.
Sep 27, 2006 @ 17:16:20
And in a perverse turn of events….. I’m now intrigued by this book. lol.
Sep 27, 2006 @ 18:57:42
LOL – I’m wondering how I’ll like it too. I read her first RS and didn’t like it quite as much as say…. Ride the Fire – but I did like it enough to want to read this one. Heck – I’d buy it and keep it for the cover alone! ‘Cause I think that cover is HAWT!
Sep 27, 2006 @ 23:16:02
I liked the first one, too, and I’m not a huge fan of contemp rom suspense — but, yeah, that cover would have drawn me in even if I hadn’t liked the first. I have this on my TBP list, and will probably still get it — just crossing my fingers that the elements of TSTL won’t get to me as badly. Clare is one of those authors I’ll definitely take a chance on.
Sep 28, 2006 @ 08:13:40
First, I changed Janine to J to prevent confusion.
Wow, sounds like this was a big flop… but I really liked this book. I wanted it because I enjoyed Extreme Exposure, the first in this series. I liked the storyline, and especially got a big kick out of the women in the newspaper crew and their amusing antics.
Sep 28, 2006 @ 09:05:03
You all may very well like this book more than I. I think once you start disliking a character, everything becomes irritating. I found Tessa to be irritating and I really disliked the way that Clare wrote the villian. I thought she was trying to hide the ball as to was the villian by using different names but it was so patently obvious who the villian was that the use of different names appeared almost clownish.
Sep 28, 2006 @ 10:01:08
I had that experience with a book this weekend. Not this particular book (I read Clare’s first RS and thought it was just good, not great and I don’t feel compelled to read this one right now). But the book I read, once I started really wondering what the hell the character was thinking, I got incredibly irritated with the whole book.
Sep 28, 2006 @ 11:04:13
We clearly need to stop thinking. :)
Oct 01, 2006 @ 14:51:54
I usually read the reviews and comments on this site and am never one to reply, but I must say I had to comment about this one, because I’m surprised. I absolutely LOVED Hard Evidence (let’s say my pickiness is notorious and I hang on to maybe one out of every 20-30 books I read).
The fact that Ms. Clare is an investigative reporter in real life, and has first hand knowledge of the things she writes about, adds to the intelligence and believability of the book. The fiction she writes feels so incredibly real, it could easily be confused for a documentary. Yet, the intensity and the passion in her stories make them oh-so-very entertaining, that I can hardly put the books down before I've read them cover-to-cover.
I’ve read all of her books so far, and I must say I think her Romantic Suspence work has me more intrigued than the historicals (mid you those were excellent too!). And I liked Hard Evidence even better than Extreme Exposure. I totally recommend this book.
As for disliking a character… they can’t all be perfect people can they? I mean if every book included a Ms. Perfect Body, Perfect Personality, Perfect Wittiness and Sense of Humor… how boring? How many people like that in real life do you know?
On a side note: Susan Elizabeth Phillips is one of my all-time favorite writers, and let me tell you, she neverwrote a heroine I didn’t HATE! They all got on my nerves from beginning to the end, but I liked the novels enough to read the whole book and disassociate from the heroine a bit.
Mar 25, 2008 @ 18:10:53
I stumbled across this in pursuit of more sites about Pamela Clare. I won’t post my thoughts on EE or HE except to say that I enjoyed both. I would say, though, that I was fortunate enough that my local bookstore sold me Unlawful Contact, which isn’t due to be released until April 1st. I didn’t know the release date when I went there. When I asked about it the cashier looked in the computer, went into the back and brought it out for me. She said that they had just come in the day before and then rung it up. For those of you who at least liked Extreme Exposure, it is my humble opinion you will not want to miss Unlawful Contact. I personally believe it’s the best of the three so far!
Jun 27, 2010 @ 05:17:18
Loved this book, I read it in three hours. I couldn’t stop reading, which is not unusual for me, but it is when it comes to this genre. I’ve only read Naked Edge and Hard Evidence (trust me to read things completely out of order!) but I’ve thoroughly enjoyed both. I’ve now ordered other books by Ms Clare, and can’t wait for them to arrive!