Tinderbox

July 17, 2017
Set in the turbulent country of Djibouti, the first entry in Grant’s Flashpoint series works better as suspense than romance. Dr. Morgan Adler, a paleoanthropologist, knows that her discovery of a Lucy-like fossilized human will significantly change what people know about the predecessors of the human species. What she doesn’t know is that someone has attached a bomb to her car, planning to detonate it once she’s in the secure compound of Camp Citron, the local military base. Fortunately she’s saved by Pax Blanchard, head of a Special Forces team stationed in Djibouti. Together they discover that the fossils are just a piece of a bigger political puzzle and that the warlord involved is desperate to get his hands on Morgan. Grant’s greatest strength is her ability to write gripping suspense with a wonderfully brisk pace, but the romance can be clunky. The scenes between Morgan and Pax are fine, but don’t really help build the relationship and feel a bit episodic. However, readers preferring more political intrigue and great action in their romance will be willing to overlook that.