Honestly, if I hadn’t had to read Dead by Nightfall for review, I’d have read the last two chapters, maybe an Amazon review or two, and called it a day. (And for someone who will put her hands over her ears and sings la-la-la when spoilers encroach, that’s huge.) But no way in hell would I have finished it. Yet I was curious, and yes, interested enough to find out what happened. What gives?

Maybe it’s the comparative originality. After all, there’s a certain relish in reading a book that is wholly plot-driven, which is rare enough these days in romantic suspense. Dead by Nightfall presumably picks up where the previous book (which I haven’t read) left off. And let me tell you, there’s a lot of it left over:

• Murders are happening around the world, and the victims happen to be members of a super, mega, ultra evil group of men who kidnap people and spirit them away to remote islands to be trained and hunted à la Hunger Games;
• The evilest man of all, Malcolm York, who was beheaded 16 years ago, is seemingly resurrected;
• The Powell Agency, owned by Griffin Powell and ostensibly composed of a bunch of security experts who defeated Super Evil Group, are currently running around like headless chickens because…
• Nicole Powell was kidnapped by the Evil Group. She really shouldn’t have been, because the Powell Agency had her on 24-hour protection. But you see, the day before she found out that hubby Griffin not only has an unbreakable platonic intimacy with fellow Powell-ites Damar Sanders and Yvette Meng – he was also Yvette’s lover 16 years ago and may be the father of her lost child. Oh, and now Nicole’s pregnant.
• But Yvette and Griffin weren’t really lovers in the true sense of the word, because at that time Yvette was the captive of her super, mega, ultra evil husband, who forced her to have sex with many men, including Griffin. Her late husband’s name? Malcolm York.

The action jumps back and forth between Nicole in captivity, and being very Katniss Everdeen-ish (really, the parallels are undeniable); evil-person-as-Malcolm, being so very evil; Griffin and the rest of the Powell Agency jumping to evil’s tune and running around the world; an ex-captive being oh-so-vengeful and radiating shades of grey; and quite a few other points of view. Some of those, I suspect, were supposed to have their own story; with the author’s passing, I wonder if we’ll ever see them.

Unfortunately, the overall result is one that may wrap things up satisfactorily for devoted readers, but that didn’t interest me. This was, admittedly, not the best place to begin, but much of the story stood on its own two feet, and did it well. The author crafts a compelling action scene, and I like the idea of revisiting a couple in trouble (Nicole and Griffin had their “HEA” three years and several books ago). Additionally, the book’s grander scope allows for storytelling on a grander scale, and the villain certainly runs enough rings around the good guys to keep things interesting. And finally, one of the good guys has an intriguing ambiguity to his character; I only wish we had more of him.

He is, unfortunately, the only one of real interest in this story. The other characters get severely shortchanged by the plot, and almost all the female characters, at some point, spend a lot of time weeping, fainting, sagging, or all three (bleeyetch). None of them has a smidgen of dimension, including the villain, who can only do so much evil before the eyeballs start rolling upwards. A good villain needs background; a good super evil villain needs plausibility to counter the nutjob. The fake Malcolm York doesn’t have that.

So back to my question: Why did I want to know what happened? Put it down to plain old curiosity, nothing more and nothing less. The plot interested me; the characters didn’t, and ultimately that’s what sank the book. To tell the truth, if Nicole had lots of voluntary sex with the other guy during captivity and divorced Griffin in the end, I would have shrugged my shoulders and probably given the author points for shaking things up. But I can’t say I care, either way.