Narrated by Roger Wayne
Hidden is the first book in the new Deep Ops series of romantic suspense novels by Rebecca Zanetti, an author whose work I’ve not yet read or listened to. The series features the somewhat rag-taggle group of hand-picked operatives who make up the newly created Requisition Force (and yes, we do learn the reason behind the name!), a branch of the Homeland Defense Department.
Former cop Malcom West spent much of his career working undercover and acquired a reputation for being the very best at what he did. But years spent living that way have taken their toll, and his previous assignment, during which he became close to someone he was then forced to kill, was the straw that broke the camel’s back, and he retired from the force, intending to spend some time dealing with the emotional fallout of that situation, regrouping and deciding what he wants to do next. As part of that plan, Mal has purchased a new house in a quiet neighbourhood – and has absolutely no idea that he’s been skilfully manoeuvred into moving in next door to someone who is suspected of having links to an organisation planning a terrorist attack.
Pippa Smith catches sight of her tall, muscled and dangerously handsome new neighbour when he’s carting boxes from his truck into the house next door and is simultaneously fascinated and terrified. She escaped the religious cult she’d been brought up in seven years earlier, and since then Pippa (not her real name, but that’s how she’s mostly referred to in the text, so I’ll stick with it) has been in hiding and is extremely wary not only of men, but of people in general, only trusting the one or two friends who managed to escape with her. She lives alone, rarely goes out and works from home and keeps herself to herself… and hot neighbour notwithstanding, that’s the way she should keep it.
Mal’s first visitor isn’t the attractive young woman he’d seen watching him through her window but is instead a rather dishevelled guy who introduces himself as Angus Force and explains he’s heading up a new department being set up by the HDD and needs a guy with Mal’s skillset on the team. Mal isn’t interested and tells Force to go – but not before Force tells him about the HDD’s interest in “the shut in next-door” who is “…the key to one of the biggest homegrown threats to the entire country.” And tells Mal how he was steered towards the purchase of this particular house. Needless to say, Mal is not pleased.
But when he finally meets Pippa Smith – a brief encounter which ends with her sending him away with an armful of home-baked goodies – he can’t help wanting to know more about her. He knows he really should get the hell out, but instead he calls Force – he’s not agreeing to help, but he wants to know more.
As this is the first book in a new series, there’s a fair bit of set-up going on, which takes time away from both the suspense plot and the romance, which is of the insta-lust variety. I found it difficult to believe that Pippa, who has been on the run for seven years, trusts nobody and is prone to anxiety attacks, could come to trust Mal and fall for him so quickly, somehow knowing instinctively that he’s a good guy and won’t hurt her. (Unless it’s a bit of consensual spanking during sex, which seemed rather out of place and out of character!) The suspense plot fares somewhat better as Mal struggles to play both sides, infiltrating the cult and trying to find out more about the possible attack while simultaneously romancing Pippa and gaining her confidence. Yes, he wants to find out what she knows, but he doesn’t believe her to be part of any kind of terrorist plot and wants to protect her.
Unlike some books, where the set-up for future stories gets in the way of the one being told, I actually enjoyed the gradual building of the Requisition Force team, who are all a bit quirky and clearly have more than a few secrets between them. Once Mal and Force get past their initial antagonism, they develop a mutual respect and strike up a friendship of sorts, and I enjoyed their snarky exchanges and the dynamic the author has created among the group.
We know who the bad guy is from the start (and he really is a nasty piece of work), so the suspense plot in Hidden is fairly straightforward as Mal and the Requisition Force have to race against time to find out what he’s planning and work out how to thwart him. It’s well done, and I particularly liked the sections that dealt with Mal’s association with the cult, because at times it seemed he may really have been in danger of succumbing to their indoctrination techniques. But honestly, there’s nothing new to be had here; we’ve got a jaded, badass former cop with PTSD, and a fearful damsel-in-distress-type who, incidentally, seems to forget everything she’s ever known about lying low and breaks all her self-imposed rules about not getting close to people the minute she gets an eyeful of Mal’s handsome face and hot bod. It was also difficult to believe the gutsy young woman who managed to escape the cult was the same one as the Xanax-taking nervous wreck we meet in the first chapter. Pippa and Mal are both keeping secrets, but don’t let that stop them from jumping each other’s bones fairly quickly (and fairly often). They have good sexual chemistry, but I never really felt the deeper connection the author tells us exists between them, so the late-book ILYs don’t have much of a foundation.
Roger Wayne is a new-to-me narrator and has a substantial catalogue of audiobooks to his name, having narrated almost 150 in various genres – over forty of which are romances. His smooth, well-modulated voice is easy on the ear, his pacing is good and he differentiates effectively between a fairly large cast, his vocal interpretations a good fit for the characters as described on the page. To start with, I wasn’t completely sold on his portrayal of Mal, to whom he gives a husky, slightly higher-pitched tone than I’d expected which sometimes sounded a bit strained – but it was fine once I got used to it, and was easily distinguishable from the other male characters. I was pleased to note that Mr. Wayne doesn’t use his “narrator” voice to portray any characters, so there’s never any confusion as to whether he’s performing dialogue or narrative. He does a good job with the female roles, too; there’s no falsetto or over-done vocal mannerisms, and as with the men, the women are easy to tell apart when more than one of them are in scenes together. It’s an expressive, nuanced performance, and I was impressed with Mr. Wayne’s ability to deliver both narrative and dialogue in a way that felt completely natural. I can’t say that Hidden was an unqualified success, but I might pick up a later book in the series, and I definitely plan on listening to Roger Wayne again.
Caz
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