Rachel Grant is one of my go-to authors for romantic suspense and I’ve given her books a number of DIK grades over the years. I was pleased to learn that there would be one last book in her long-running Evidence series and that it would, in a way, bring the series full circle by delivering a long-awaited HEA for two characters who appeared in the very first book, Concrete Evidence.

Over a decade before the events of False Evidence, JT Talon and Alexandra Vargas were engaged to be married. But Alex called off their wedding when she overheard JT and his father, Joe, then a US senator, discussing JT running for Congress – something JT had not discussed with Alexandra. Knowing Joe Talon to be a serial adulterer who regarded women as adjuncts to his own ambitions, Alex was suddenly awakened to the realisation of what her life was likely to be like if she married JT. She loved him and knew he cared for her, but she wasn’t prepared to play second fiddle to his political aspirations or be a trophy wife – or a wife who looked the other way at her husband’s affairs – and called the wedding off.

A few years later, Alex and JT became lovers again as she stepped up to support him following the the shattering events of Concrete Evidence and his father’s arrest. She’s never stopped loving JT but suspected the reverse was not true; JT had become angry, moody and cold – a different man to the one she fell in love with. She wasn’t at all sure how their relationship was going to go, especially as JT didn’t want children while she did – but that issue became moot when JT threw some truly unpleasant accusations at her in public. She walked out that night and they haven’t seen each other since.

Seven years have bought big changes in both their lives. Alex, now a professor of theoretical physics at the University of Maryland, is a single mother to fifteen-month-old Gemma, and JT is planning to sell Talon & Drake, the multi-billion dollar engineering company that has dominated most of his life.

When the story proper begins, Alex has just paid a visit to the home of her former roommate, Kendall, who committed suicide just a few weeks earlier. She and Kendall’s sister had spent the day together going through some old keepsakes and photos, and Alex is driving to collect Gemma from daycare when she’s flagged down by a cop. The road is deserted and she knows she’s driving safely; as she pulls over, she calls her friend Erica (Concrete Evidence) to let her know she’s running late, and Erica offers to collect Gemma for her. When the cop doesn’t even ask for Alex’s licence and registration it’s clear this isn’t a regular traffic stop; something is very, very wrong and Alex knows she only has one chance to get away. When the cop pulls her out of the car, she swings for him with the heavy computer hard drive she’d taken from Kendall’s and knocks him down. As she checks that he’s out for the count, another car comes along and she quickly dives into the ditch across the road waiting for it to pass – but it doesn’t. The car stops and the driver gets out, walks to the unconscious cop – and shoots him in the face.

Alex waits until the car pulls away before running back to Kendall’s house and driving off in her friend’s old car. She’s in big trouble – a cop is dead and her car is at the scene of the crime – and she needs help, but she can’t risk calling anyone for fear that the police – and whoever is after her – might come for Gemma. For now, at least, her little girl is safe with Erica and Lee Scott; she trusts them to take care of her while Alex figures out what to do next. When she sees the sign for the Catoctin Mountain Park, she’s immediately put in mind of the isolated house JT owns there, the house where she’d broken their engagement so many years ago. Surely a house belonging to a man she hasn’t had any contact with for seven years is the last place anyone will think to look for her?

When the news breaks about the dead cop and Alex’s face is splashed all over the media, Erica and Lee have exactly the same idea as Alex about Gemma, and arrange for her to go into hiding – with JT. He doesn’t know a thing about taking care of an infant, but can’t possibly say no when Lee suggests he take Gemma to the cabin in the mountains until they can find a way to exonerate Alex and find out what’s going on.

False Evidence gets off to an exciting start, but once JT and Alexandra are reunited, the pacing slacks off and the rest of the story focuses almost entirely on their relationship, making this one something of an outlier among the author’s novels. The mystery/suspense plot, while clever and well put-together, is wrapped up really quickly and is all but absent from the large middle chunk of the book, and I just didn’t find the second – or third? – chance romance between Alexandra and JT to be interesting enough to sustain the momentum. I liked the way the story is structured, with a number of flashbacks to various key events in their relationship, but the present day romance relies too heavily on readers being already invested in it and in them. I’m a fan of second chance love stories, because I really enjoy watching the protagonists getting to know each other and falling in love all over again, but that isn’t really what’s going on here; it’s clear early on that neither JT nor Alex has fallen out of love with each other, so the story is more about JT giving good grovel and earning Alex’s forgiveness and trust. Those are positive things, of course, but by the halfway mark I was longing for some action (not the bedroom kind!) and for the suspense plot to kick in.

As a big fan of Rachel Grant’s romantic suspense novels, it pains me to say that this final Evidence book was a bit of a disappointment. Instead of her usual cleverly-plotted, pulse-pounding tale of two people falling in love while outwitting the bad guys, the suspense plot in False Evidence is fairly minimal and acts more as an inciting incident to get Alex and JT into close proximity so they can work through their emotional baggage. It’s all very well done (if a little overlong), and the flashback chapters work well – but I really missed the balance between romance and suspense that Ms. Grant is so adept at creating.

I admit that I appear to be in the minority on this because most of the ratings on Goodreads (pre-release) are five stars. I think the degree to which you enjoy False Evidence will almost certainly depend upon the degree to which you are invested in Alex and JT and their sixteen-year-long romance, so I’m offering a qualified recommendation.