Though I haven’t read any of the books in Christine Feehan’s new series, it was certainly easy to forget that since I’ve read books just like it at least a dozen times – especially in the last year or so.

In that oh-so-familiar Publishers-Beating-Stuff-to-Death category, Night Game is one of those Kick-ass Men and Women Working for a Supersecret Agency Fighting Evil (and often Paranormal) Villains sub-genre that just might be turning into the paranormal and romantic suspense equivalent of the All-Regency-All-the-Time doldrums currently crippling historical romance. But, with that said, Night Game is a competently written book that might constitute a satisfying enough fix for diehards.

The third entry in the series (Shadow Game and Mind Game preceded this one) featuring the GhostWalkers, physically enhanced former Special Forces operatives turned into Super Humans by some sort of Evil Genius, dedicated to “protecting our country and those unable to protect themselves.”

GhostWalker Raoul “Gator” Fontenont is one of those tough guys of the Louisiana variety, you know, the ones who appear to be channeling Dennis Quaid in The Big Easy. As the book opens, Gator is preparing to return to his bayou home at the request of his beloved Grand-mere and join in the search for a missing young woman. Before he leaves the tough guy enclave, however, the adopted daughter of the Evil Genius and the head of the whole GhostWalkers deal convinces him to also dedicate his time and abilities to search for another missing young woman – one Iris “Flame” Johnson.

Flame (yes, our leads are actually called Gator and Flame), is far from an ordinary young woman. It seems that before our Evil Genius started to experiment on tough guys, he confined his tests to young, female foreign orphans imported for the purpose. Not surprisingly, Flame hates anything and everyone connected with her past – and that most especially includes the Evil Genius’ daughter and all of the GhostWalkers – and will use her own physical enhancements to make certain she’s not found.

But Flame’s body is a ticking time-bomb and she needs the help of the GhostWalkers whether she wants it or not. It seems that the Evil Genius deliberately induced cancer in Flame as the method of delivery for her various enhancements and, since her cancer will undoubtedly continue to recur and worsen, her only hope for a cure rests with the daughter of the man who once treated her so callously. It’s Gator’s job to find her and convince her of the importance of coming back for treatment.

You can guess where the story goes from here. Flame and Gator pretty much instantly combust when they meet, bad guys do bad stuff, and, eventually, Flame and Gator hook up.

Christine Feehan is a solid writer (if often a humorless one) and, even though the story has a been-there-done-that feeling on every page, Night Game moves along nicely enough that those who can’t seem to get enough of stories featuring a supersecret team of tough-guy heroes and kick-ass heroines might find their $9.99 (this is one of those new, larger paperbacks “designed for comfortable reading”) well spent.

Ultimately, for its highly formulaic type Night Game is an above average example of the sub-genre. Further than that, though, I just can’t go.