Danger in a Red Dress-Christina Dodd

Danger in a Red Dress
Christina Dodd
Signet, Mar 2009, $7.99
ISBN: 9789451226266

Personal nurse Hannah Grey’s last client died and his family accused her of unethical practices when they did not like the will though her share of $50,000 matched each of theirs. Her agency obtains work as a personal nurse to ailing Melinda Manly in remote coastal Maine.

Meanwhile Melinda’s playboy son Carrick hires surveillance expert Gabriel Prescott to video his dying mom and her new companion as he insists he fears for his mom’s life from associates of her late criminal spouse who stole and hid a fortune of money that everyone from dangerous felons to the law enforcement assumes she knows where the loot is. Gabriel hides from Carrick that they are half-brothers but accepts the job not realizing what the real danger is to him comes from what Hannah does to his heart.

This is a clever blending of the Prescott saga (see Lost Texas Hearts) and the Manly saga (see The Fortune Hunters) as Christina Dodd provides the audience with a strong romantic suspense that closes out two wonderful series for the price of one novel. The story line is fast-paced from even before Gabriel meets Hannah and takes off when they do meet. Fans will relish the Prescott-Manly merger.

Harriet Klausner