The Search

It's taken me a little more than a week, but I finished Nora Robert's The Search.

It could be the timing, the inability to read nice, large chunks, or a number of other reasons, but... I didn't like the hero, Simon Doyle, and the dog training reminded me of the loss of Saxon, my own pooch. But mostly it was Simon.

I despise men who think it's up to them to make the decisions for the little woman - no matter how independent she is, or able to make her own damn decisions - because he knows what's best. No. On so many levels, no. I'd probably kick him to the curb before the relationship had a chance to evolve; and he didn't evolve as a character.

The 'this is my house, you're just living here' isn't a good sign for the future, even as he 'allows' Fiona to clean his house. I found him quite obnoxious about it, and a hundred other little things.

On the positive side, the story lines of canine rescue and Fiona's surviving a serial killer is well researched and interesting. The dogs are great and training techniques valuable to anyone who has a destructo-dog or canine-the-destroyer type. The villains are villains with no redeeming features - I had to wince at the wiping of everything on the mobile phone - brutal and, well, serial-killer-like.

The final confrontation between Fiona and the man who wants her dead is brief and lacks emotional punch; and while she and Simon go after the killer - Fiona, because she needs to end it, Simon because he wants vengeance and to protect Fiona - her only satisfaction is the villain is caught. Simon got the better deal. (Shoulda set the hounds on 'im.)

The Search meets expectations, but doesn't exceed it - there are better Noras, like High Noon and Blue Smoke.