There’s nothing like a stupid heroine to ruin a perfectly decent book. Line of Fire contains crisp writing, constant action and an exotic setting. It also has one of the most astonishingly idiotic heroines I’ve had the misfortune to come across in some time. Ever wanted to read a story about G.I. Joe and Barbie in the jungle? Here it is.

Kimberly Stanton’s daddy, a powerful senator, is a former soldier and powerful proponent for a strong military. Daddy was a bad man, so Kimberly decided all soldiers are bad men who must be stopped. Her crusade to cut back on the military and put an end to men like Special Forces officer Tex Monroe brings him into her life.

In order to prove soldiers are nothing but vicious, soulless killers, she arranges a press demonstration where a soldier shows off his shooting skills for reporters. Tex gets the assignment. Of course, Kimberly can’t take her mind off his hot body to actually pay attention to his presentation, as she later reveals. Not that it matters when the demonstration is interrupted when a helicopter swoops down onto the firing range and armed men abduct Tex and Kimberly.

They later awake in the South American jungle. Tex gets them away from their captors and leads Kimberly deep into the jungle. He explains that they’ve been kidnapped, but Kimberly just doesn’t believe him. She recognizes a trick when she sees one. Obviously her father arranged this phony “kidnapping” so the big, bad soldier could demonstrate his training and convince her men like him are needed to fight the bad guys in the world. Well, she’s just not going to play. So there. Too bad for her the men with guns chasing them down aren’t going to let her sit this one out.

Kimberly makes Anna Nicole and Jessica Simpon look like rocket scientists. As they make their way through the jungle, she pouts, she simpers, she shrieks, she whines, she cries, she rolls her eyes what seems like a million times. Tex tells her she needs to put mud on her face for camouflage. She asks in dismay, “Do I have to do the whole mud-and-grass in the hair thing? Couldn’t I just smear on a little grease paint and call it good?” Eventually she becomes convinced that missions like this are too dangerous for even a trained soldier like Tex and he must need her as backup. He tells her to stay put while he foils the bad guys; she refuses and follows him. She just wants to help! He needs her! Never mind the stupidity of sneaking up on an armed man while he’s focusing on vicious killers. If it’s too dangerous for a trained soldier, what good is she, with no training whatsoever, going to do? The funniest line is when Tex thinks to himself, “Thank God, she apparently wasn’t one of those women who fell apart in stressful situations.” At first I thought I’d stumbled into an amnesia book and he’d suddenly forgotten everything he’d experienced since he met her. This is, after all, the woman who burst into tears when he told her to stop acting like a brat and start cooperating with him.

This is one of those books where the author’s political bias colors her story. The author’s bio says that Ms. Dees served in the Air Force, so there’s no doubt where her allegiances lie. So it’s probably no surprise that the person spouting anti-military lines is portrayed as a mindless ninny while the military hero is everything that is good and noble and true. Kimberly is the ultimate one-note shrieking liberal stereotype, bleating the most militant lines in the most grating way possible.

“Charlie Squad and the other Special Forces teams like yours are done, Soldier. I’m the final nail in your coffin.”
“The American taxpayers are done paying for killers like you.”
“Are you sure it’s terrorists and not the rest of America you don’t want seeing how you really operate?”

Naturally, these beliefs aren’t portrayed as the result of any deep thought. It all comes down to Daddy. Watching Tex save her life throughout their jungle adventure changes her tune soon enough, until she delivers a stirring pro-military speech that would do Donald Rumsfeld proud. On the other hand, Tex is every inch the plastic action figure, relentlessly stalwart and self-sacrificing, willing to put himself on the line for the greater good without a second thought. There’s no middle ground, no gray area between the military is evil! and the military rules all. Tex is goodness incarnate. Kimberly is a twit. It’s hard to see how any reader, regardless of their politics, would enjoy reading her comments, whether because they disagree with what she’s saying or they don’t appreciate their own beliefs coming from such a dingbat. I’ll give the heroine this much: she’s an equal opportunity offender.

Line of Fire is well written and fast paced with nonstop action, but the “heroine” is so annoying she ruins the book. It’s difficult to understand why the hero would fall for her and want to spend the rest of his life with her. I spent 251 pages with her, and that was 250 pages too many.