Untraceable by Laura Griffin - Book Review

             I guess my first question is that I’m under the impression that this is supposed to be a series of books by Laura Griffin.  In this case, this would mean that since the main character is Alexandra Lovell, you would think that the next book that would follow would have her as a character.  Yet when I read a synopsis of the next book, it’s about Elaina McCord, an FBI profiler.  If you move to the next book, you will see that the main character is Mia Voss.  

             I don’t understand why this would be referred to as a series as Tracers 1, 2, or 3.  These books leave me with the impression that they’re stand alone books so I’m left as being confused since this really isn’t a series to begin with. 

             In any case, Alexandra Lovell is a detective and her job in this case was to make her client, Melanie Bess, disappear from her abusive husband, who is a cop.  For some reason though, Alex is worried that her ex-husband has found Melanie and she was killed.  This leads her to find Nathan Devereaux, a detective who is on the police force.  

              The plot moves along nicely, making the reader wonder if Melanie is alive or dead.  To go along with this plot is a relationship between Alex and Nathan.  The combination blends nicely, along with some good sex scenes, making the story move well along with some great suspence that keeps you guessing until the end.  

             I would have enjoyed the story more if the characters were memorable.  Unfortunatly, they weren’t.  I would say that the main reason for this was because the characters lacked development in the story.  

             If you were to look at other reviews of this book, people would say that they couldn’t connect with Alex or that Alex was childish and that no one could understand why Nathan would go out with Alex.  I would say that that’s what the readers wanted to think because the author gave them no directon and left the readers to their imagination, which led to these conclusions.  

              I don’t think there is anything wrong with portraying your character as being chidlish if you led the reader think that through dialogue, inner thoughts, as well as the actions that the character has taken.  So for example, if you say that Alex is chidlsh because she had an argument with Nathan’s ex-wife that seemed chidish, then you could say she was childish.  That didn’t happen.   You couldn’t really define the characters in this book because of this other than Melanie’s abusive husband, who was obviously sadistic as we saw at the end of the story through his actions.  

               As a story filled with suspense and a great plot that is believable with some good love scenes, Untraceable was a great story.  Even with the lack of character development, I’ll still give this book four stars.  

Ron Hummer