I read Griffin’s debut novel and thought that it showed great promise. Well, I think that she’s living up to that promise in Unspeakable, the second book in her Tracers series. With a strong-willed heroine, a sexy hero, and a gripping suspense plot, this book easily kept me turning the pages and wanting more.

Elaina McCord is struggling to keep her fledgling FBI career afloat. After the rigorous training and trials at Quantico, she feels that she’s been banished to Brownsville, Texas. Her ultimate goal is to land a position with the elite profilers back in D.C., but when the only duties her superiors will give her are serving warrants and running background checks, how is she supposed to excel? Then, eviscerated girls are found in the marshlands of an island off the coast of Texas and Elaina is sent in to help. She arrives as the latest body is brought to shore, but the male-only local law enforcement is not inclined to let her help. She’s shown to the police station and made to wait for hours while the real work is going on. Finally, she’s invited to a meeting where she gives her profile of the murderer. When she proposes that a woman who was killed nine years ago was the killer’s first victim, she can see that the men don’t take her seriously. And when they send her on her way, she can’t believe that she’s blown her chance.

As a true crime writer, Troy Stockton is very interested in the case developing in his backyard. He’s also quite interested in the attractive FBI agent sent to help. When he realizes that she’s leaving the island, he calls her and tries to rile her into staying. A coincidental blown tire only helps with his goal. After Elaina checks into the room last used by the current victim, Troy makes an unsolicited appearance to talk about the case and thus inserts himself into the investigation.

As the days go by, Troy helps Elaina on numerous occasions, working very closely with the case. He’s also constantly working on her, trying to get her to open up to him and drop her guard a bit to allow their chemistry to work its magic. She starts to rely on him and crave his company, but at the same time doesn’t want to need anybody. Despite the fact that she’s on a task force, she goes off on solo missions without always letting her superiors know, but Troy is always there to back her up. She finally gets drunk enough one night to have what she thinks is going to be a one-night stand with Troy, but she can’t get the guy out of her system.

I really enjoyed the suspense plot and its climax. The investigation has twists and turns and quite a few suspects. The secondary characters were interesting and I want to read to next book to see what happens with a budding relationship. While I was more satisfied with the suspense storyline than the romance, there was a pretty nice balance of the two. It didn’t take the grade down, but I did notice a lot of similarities between this couple and Brockmann’s Sam and Alyssa. Elaina is consumed with proving that she can make it big as a woman in the FBI. She’s got a hardened exterior and doesn’t like letting people in. She’s even got a gay best friend in her partner. And she has to get completely wasted in order to allow herself to sleep with the guy she’s attracted to. Troy is even referred to once as a “redneck.” So, if you like that kind of relationship, where the woman slowly removes her armor, you might like this one.

Troy was a great hero: smart, sexy, rugged, sweet. But his placement in the storyline was a bit weird. For no apparent reason, he called Elaina and asked her to stay in town and then broke into her room. This type of behavior continued, and she didn’t exactly complain, so I eventually accepted that he was going to be there, whether it made total sense or not. Basically, it was an “I’m the hero, so here I am” kind of maneuver. There were also a couple of too simple aspects of the story, such as Elaina’s father, who she doesn’t get along with, randomly showing up at the end to apologize for stuff. But overall, there wasn’t much to complain about.

Unspeakable grabbed my attention from the beginning and had me looking for excuses to sit down and keep reading. The suspense plot was complex and enjoyable. The romance wasn’t as well-developed, but with such a hunky hero, it too was better than average. I like what I’ve read from Griffin so far and look forward to her next book.