A Necessary Risk is one of the most puzzling romantic suspense novels I’ve read in a long time – and I don’t mean that as a compliment. My bafflement had nothing to do with the supposed suspense plot. Indeed, the biggest questions I kept asking myself were: Did anyone involved in the publication of this book really think this mystery was the slightest bit mysterious? Is this suspense plot actually supposed to be suspenseful? And where’s the romance?

The back cover has one of those cleverly written blurbs that makes the story sound far more interesting than it is, never indicating how obvious it is. When his brother Jim commits suicide while participating in a drug trial, Detective Zach Thomas becomes convinced the drug his brother was taking is responsible. He doesn’t believe there’s any way Jim would have committed suicide otherwise. In his quest for the truth, Zach approaches Jessica Parker, the new head researcher in charge of testing Whitman Pharma’s new drug, a treatment for Hepatitis C called HC0815. At first, she doesn’t believe him. All the research on HC0815 states that none of the test subjects reported suffering any side effects. But, predictably enough, as she looks deeper, she finds evidence of a possible cover-up.

The idea of a suspense plot built around medical research and science gone wrong appealed to me, as it seemed like a welcome change from the usual stalkers and serial killers. Unfortunately, Long wastes such promising subject matter by delivering a very mundane plot. The problem with the premise here is that it’s completely transparent. They’re not trying to solve the mystery of Jim’s death or figure out what’s happening. The book begins with the assumption that the drug is responsible, and they spend the rest of the book proving it. The ending is never in doubt. It would have been more interesting if something else had been at work and something more complicated was happening. Alas, that’s not the case. There are no twists. The story really is that basic, boiling down to a long voyage to an obvious destination.

It would be one thing if the investigation was interesting. It’s not. Early on, they meet a researcher who confirms the cover-up. They learn the names of a few other college students who committed suicide around the same time, and interview their families one by one in a series of tedious and repetitive scenes, each of which ends with the predictable revelation, “Why, yes, my son/daughter was participating in that drug trial.” In a better book, the author would have let those conversations take place offstage and just had the characters sum them up, telling us that they talked to all of the families and confirmed their children were on the drug trial instead of forcing us to sit through each boring interview. That would have accomplished in a few lines of dialogue what the author wastes pages and pages doing. It really feels like Long just padded a book that didn’t have a complex enough story to sustain its designated length, and with occasionally clunky writing as well.

It doesn’t help that, dull plotting aside, the pace drags, especially in the exposition-heavy first chapter and the clumsily handled introspective sections. Meanwhile, there are a few half-assed, not-at-all suspenseful attempts on Jessica’s life that just make the villains look inept. Then there’s the “mystery” of who’s responsible for covering up the dangerous effects of HC0815, which I didn’t think was a mystery at all. Besides the fact that there simply aren’t enough characters in the book to make the villain’s identity anything but obvious, basic logic indicates that this particular character most likely has to be involved. The biggest mystery to me was why heroine didn’t see it. (The hero at least warns her not to share what they’ve learned with anyone in the company). I suppose it’s simply because the author wouldn’t allow her to be, so the heroine could express “surprise” at this “revelation” in the end. In fact, when the moment comes, the author writes, “Even though she knew now (the villain) was behind the entire conspiracy, she couldn’t quite wrap her mind around the fact [the villain]’d lied. To her.” I mean, really. She knows this person is responsible for the deaths of several people who knew the truth, had no trouble covering up the deaths of the test subjects, and was perfectly willing to put an unsafe drug on the market. But the idea that this person had lied? To her? Shocking!

With such a thin plot, you would think there’d be plenty of time to develop both the characters and the romance. If there was, Long certainly didn’t take advantage of it. The characters are paper thin and their development is minimal. Jessica’s father has MS, which explains her dedication to medical research. Jim was Zach’s only remaining family member, so now he’s all alone. That’s it in terms of character development. Lengthy sections pass without even a glimmer of romance, and I really did wonder more than once where the heck the love story was. The romantic moments appear only sporadically, and they never feel anything more than perfunctory. Not for a second did I believe these two were in love.

It’s true that Long gives a reasonably authentic sense of the world of medical research, but in the end, A Necessary Risk was a most unnecessary use of my time and money.