Sandra Brown is one of the few authors I read who receives a wide range of grades from me. I have given her both As and Fs and pretty much everything in between. Out of Nowhere is on the lower end of in-between – it has some of her trademark mistakes combined with some of the points that have made her a bestselling author for over three decades.

Going to the county fair was an impulse decision for single mom Elle Portman. She had spent the morning and afternoon working on her latest book and felt she owed it to her two-year-old son Charlie to give him an enjoyable evening. He has fun on the carousel but gets cranky after just a short time and is ready to go. It is difficult moving out of the crowded exit with a clunky, over-sized stroller, but they have just about made their escape when the unthinkable happens: someone shoots into the crowd, killing the man standing beside Elle. As his dead body knocks her aside, she loses her grip on Charlie’s stroller, which careens wildly into the frantic cluster of people trying to run for cover.

Going to the county fair was not a willing decision for businessman extraordinaire Calder Hudson. But if he had any hopes of getting laid that night – and he was definitely hoping to – he would have to meet his reporter girlfriend there and ooh and ahh over her interview with the hotshot country star headlining the carnival’s concert. He is walking in when the first shot is fired. He shoves the man next to him to the ground. Urges others to take cover. And when he sees a runaway pram, he tries desperately to stop it. Reaching for the handle is his final memory before waking up in the hospital after surgery. He had taken a bullet to the arm – the same bullet which wound up passing through him and killing the child in the out-of-control buggy.

During the many police interviews and counseling sessions that follow the tragedy, Elle and Calder are drawn to each other. He is fascinated by her strength as she processes her grief with grace and dignity. She is grateful that he attempted to save her child and is one of the few people she can speak candidly to about what happened to them. Both of them are outraged that the initial suspect turned out to be a scapegoat, with the real murderer having managed to escape justice. That’s something that neither of them intends to let go of. They will do anything and everything they possibly can to catch the perpetrator.

Brown is a very experienced writer of mysteries, and she does an absolutely lovely job here of keeping the reader engaged in the puzzle portion of her story. I should perhaps have guessed the perpetrator but I suspected everyone but them. The story contains plenty of (non-graphic) violence and it doesn’t delve too deeply into the macabre mind of its villain, a trait common in thrillers today, which made for a refreshing change. The prose is smooth and the characters are well-drawn; I didn’t always like them but the author perfectly matches their personality with their behaviors. Execution means a lot in writing – the taking of the initial idea and turning it into an enthralling tale, and Brown does a good job of that.

The novel is loaded with a plethora of problems, though. Brown often has difficulty distinguishing the line between alpha ass and alpha male, and in Calder, she provides us with an alpha ass. By his own admission, he is arrogant, narcissistic, and merciless in his pursuit of success and wealth. Those are his good traits. He is also overbearing, creepily possessive, callous, and selfish. He is living with Shauna, a ruthlessly ambitious reporter, at the start of the story. Naturally, Calder stops sleeping with her after the shooting (even though the whole reason he attended the fair was to sweeten her up so she’d have sex with him) because he finds himself drawn to the sweet, shy mother of a recently deceased child who naturally hasn’t had sex in years. It’s an old-fashioned pitting of the Madonna heroine against the corporate success slut.

While I easily knew I disliked Calder, I found Elle perplexing. I really wanted to empathize with her because of the trauma she experienced, but she’s a children’s book author who is pretty much done mourning her two-year-old after two months. So while I understood her thirst for justice and interest in being part of the resolution of the crime consuming her, I understood her relationship with Calder a lot less. She could have worked with the police or other professionals to seek answers but the minute he shows up, she pretty much pivots toward him. Elle being grateful for his attempt to save her son is admirable, but accepting the domineering way in which he treats her is less comprehensible.

Their romance icked me out. Especially since Elle knew Calder had moved out of the apartment he shared with Shauna on literally the same morning he had come to her house to sleep with her. Talk about being a rebound!

That isn’t the only aspect of the relationship that troubled me. Sorrow can make us lack agency and rely heavily on the people around us, and I couldn’t help feeling that part of the attraction of Elle for Calder was that she puts up only a token resistance to any demand he makes. I don’t think they stood a chance for happiness as a couple. Either she will one day wake up from her calamity-induced apathy and realize he is a controlling jerk, or she will have to willingly spend the rest of her life as a doormat, probably receiving increased demands for her efforts. Additionally, the man has a habit of running when he feels emotional. After their first sexual encounter, Calder disappears in the night because it had been “too good”. When their hunt for the killer is at an apex and he fears the police curtailing his efforts, he takes off from the home he is sharing with Elle without a word in order to chase a lead. When the issues are finally resolved and the two are hailed as heroes, he escapes the publicity by running to his parents’ house without her. At the end of the novel, Calder returns to Elle’s house and says, “I left something here that belongs to me . . You.” I thought that summed up well how he saw Elle, as a possession to pick up and put down as he pleased. That she accepted it deeply troubled me.

In terms of grading – the mystery, prose, and engagement of the novel would all receive As. I was invested in the resolution and fortunately, the writing is smooth enough to make it easy to reach the end. However, the romance and hero are F-worthy. I’d love to recommend Out of Nowhere, but think it is a book only fans willing to overlook some serious issues will be able to enjoy.