If there’s such a thing as a connoisseur of C books, I’m probably it. At my rough count I’ve reviewed about 230 C-range books. So I know average. The good news: Private Justice is my favorite kind of C book, the kind that’s half-good/half-bad. The bad news: I’m pretty much damning it with faint praise.

Henry Kelley, a senator from California, has just stepped in it big time. He let years of power go to his head, and now he’s been caught – like so many men before him – with his pants around his ankles. Several of the women he’s slept with have come forward with their stories, and the press is all over him about his six mistresses. To add to the nightmare, they are flinging accusations of financial misconduct. Henry was known as a family man with six kids – a principled, family values guy, and now his reputation is imploding.

This affects both the hero and heroine of this book. The hero is Dylan Kelley, Henry’s son. Dylan already knows the darker side of his father, who spent long hours in Washington away from the family, missing every important event. Dylan doesn’t really like his father, but as an attorney he feels compelled to help him. He knows the scandal will hurt the entire family, and he can’t shake the feeling that there’s more to the situation than meets the eye. For one thing, his father seems genuinely afraid, though he won’t really come clean about the situation.

Dylan meets the heroine when he tries to locate his dad. Cindy Jensen is the senator’s Chief Staff Assistant. She handles many of the details of his life, and does indeed know how to get his private line. The scandal has left her in the lurch as well, because she really believed in what the senator stood for. He also helped her personally during a very hard time in her life. After some sparring about whether Dylan really is Kelley’s son and has his best interest in mind, Cindy and Dylan begin working together. They go see the senator, who is hiding out in the family mansion, not talking to anyone. They pour through paperwork trying to figure out what is going on. Then they have sex and fall in love – really, really quickly.

For me, the romance fell flat. Though I found Dylan in particular likable and interesting, I couldn’t quite see his falling for Cindy and proposing marriage during the short time-frame of this book. Part of the reason is that they are in a stressful situation, but even leaving that aside they both have too much baggage. It’s not just that Dylan feels abandoned; Cindy actually was abandoned by her father and put into the foster care system. And then she married an abusive jerk who’s still out there somewhere, threatening her life. It’s all too much conflict to overcome for a short book. (Side note: How likely is it that a former foster child who went to a community college would land an important job with one of the most powerful men in Washington? My hunch: Not very.)

Ah, but what about the “half-good” portion of the book? I actually loved that the senator was flawed, and at least in some respects, guilty. It’s not a spoiler to say so, since it’s clear from the first pages that he really did sleep with the women – and really didn’t take any money. A lot of romantic suspense revolves around people who are accused of crimes they did not commit. The senator’s guilt made the conflict really interesting, even though it set the book up for success that it didn’t really achieve.

Readers should know going in that this is definitely not a whole story. Dylan and Cindy’s relationship is resolved, but the senator and his family are left in danger, and the story will unfold in five more books (it’s a continuity series). While Private Justice ended with a just-average grade, I’m interested in the idea behind it. I’ll likely check the other books out as well.