I was in the mood to read some romantic suspense when a new Lora Leigh novel came to my attention. She’s been publishing books for more than two decades in the romantic suspense, erotic romance and paranormal genres. Play Dirty is the first in a new series, Tempting SEALS: Triton, a spin off from her Tempting SEALS series (originally published 2005-2008, with collections published since then).

Jack and Poppy have known each other since they were kids, but when Jack joined the Navy SEALs, he went out of his way to avoid Poppy whenever he came back to town. Now, after a secret deal with the Navy to keep him out of prison (he killed some black ops agents who were abusing innocents), he’s got a job to do: Protect Poppy, even if it means she’ll never forgive him for keeping her in the dark about why he’s back home. He’s after the men who are her bosses, real estate moguls who happen to be involved in seriously dirty crimes. He moves into the house across the street from hers (that he’d bought, but had left sitting empty for years) and the spark between him and Poppy hasn’t dimmed. In fact, he’s got the perfect way to keep her safe while investigating – make himself indispensable in her bed and her life, at least for a little while. But when Poppy finds out what’s really going on, will she be willing to forgive Jack for his deception?

The gritty aspects Play Dirty make themselves known in the prologue. A seven-year-old Poppy finds a disheveled, bruised and haunted fourteen-year-old Jack hiding behind the family dumpster. She tells her parents, and they take him in, feed him, and clothe him, but when they offer him a ride later to an uncle’s home, he declines and leaves. Soon after, the news is full of the story of Jack killing his abusive father who had already killed his mother. Eleven years later, Jack is a Navy SEAL, back in town, and hunting down a sexual predator who is after Poppy. Jack is too late to save Poppy from being sexually assaulted but Poppy defended herself, using a small knife (a previous gift from Jack), to kill her rapist. Jack, with the help of Poppy’s older brother, takes care of the body and no-one but the three of them know what happened, but Jack blames himself for not stopping the assault in the first place. And now, a further eight years later, the way into the viper’s den that Poppy has inadvertently gotten herself involved in is for Jack to find out things from the inside by finally involving himself in a relationship with the only woman’s he’s ever cared about.

For readers missing the uber-alpha hero, they’ll get one in Jack. He’s a cold-blooded killer (always of the bad guys) and is super possessive of Poppy once she lets him into her bed. ‘Poppy is his and he is hers and he will destroy anyone who gets in their way’ says the author’s website. The tag line for this book is ‘Fifty Shade of Grey meets hard-body ex-Navy SEALs’, which gives some insight into the kind of sex, language, and general plot-type to expect. Poppy is the girl next door, though to her credit she isn’t a complete pushover (I mean, she did kill her rapist after all). She’s smart and brave and friendly and isn’t afraid to tell Jack her real feelings for him even if he has trouble admitting the same. (Oh, he can tell her he desires her but love is another story).

There are shootouts, hostage takings, and general mayhem – as one might expect as the story progresses. But a main plot point (that also attracted me to the story) is under-utilized. The really interesting scenario is that Poppy’s bosses, besides being drug traffickers, are involved in mysterious shipments involving artificial intelligence, and no-one in the US military (Jack and his friends) knows what its purpose is. And it’s not until the epilogue that more of that is revealed. Jack and Poppy survive multiple shootouts and get their happy ending and it looks like I’ll be picking up the next book to see what happens next in the AI storyline (and to see if one of Poppy’s friends gets picked up by one of Jack’s friends, an almost certainty). Play Dirty is not the most sophisticated romantic suspense story out there but in the end I was entertained despite a bit of cringing over Jack’s ‘me Tarzan you Jane’ behaviour.