Blog Tour | Full Disclosure by Dee Henderson

This week, the

Christian Fiction Blog Alliance

is introducing

Full Disclosure

by

Dee Henderson

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Full Disclosure
by Dee Henderson
Christian Fiction / Contemporary / Suspense
Available October 2012
Bethany House
432 pages

About the Book

Ann Silver is a cop's cop. As the Midwest Homicide Investigator, she is called in to help local law enforcement on the worst of cases, looking for answers to murder. Hers is one of the region's most trusted investigative positions.

Paul Falcon is the FBI's top murder cop in the Midwest. If the victim carried a federal badge or had a security clearance, odds are good Paul and his team see the case file or work the murder.

Their lives intersect when Ann arrives to pass a case off her desk and onto his. A car wreck and a suspicious death offer a lead on a hired shooter he is tracking. Paul isn't expecting to meet someone, the kind that goes on the personal side of the ledger, but Ann Silver has his attention.

The better he gets to know her, the more Paul realizes her job barely scratches the surface of who she is. She knows spies and soldiers and U.S. Marshals, and has written books about them. She is friends with the former vice president. People with good reason to be cautious about who they let into their lives deeply trust her. Paul wonders just what secrets Ann is keeping, until she shows him the John Doe Killer case file, and he starts to realize just who this lady he is falling in love with really is...

My Thoughts
I absolutely devoured the O'Malley and the Uncommon Heroes series when I read them several years ago. I couldn't read them fast enough, and Dee Henderson couldn't write them fast enough to suit me. [Grin!] After a six-year hiatus, I think it's safe to say that Henderson's Full Disclosure was one of the most talked about and highly anticipated books of the year. It was for me at least!

Unfortunately, I didn't feel like Full Disclosure lived up to the hype surrounding it's release. I never relish giving a less-than-positive review, but I don't think you can fully comprehend how much it pains me to write this kind of "negative" review for a book by a favorite author (or how much I wanted to absolutely love this book!).

For a book that was marketed as romantic suspense, I found it to be neither very romantic nor very suspenseful. The first half of the book moved along very slowly, and I had to force myself to continue reading. About halfway through the pace really picked up, and I (finally) became intrigued by the mystery for the last quarter of the book. Much of the book was moved along by lengthy sections of dialogue where the conversations were more speeches than actual back and forth between characters.

I liked the idea of focusing on characters who were a little older than the norm (40ish) and particularly a woman who was content in her singleness. Unfortunately, it was hard for me to connect with Ann. She was just too ... perfect. Her flaws were even couched in positive terms, and I found it highly annoying. In the later portion of the book, some of her struggles and fears came to light, but it was almost too late for me at that point. (Also, I'm not sure that Ann was really content in her singleness as much as she was terrified of marriage and the sacrifices required.)

The relationship between Ann and Paul was odd as well. Paul originally focused his attention on Ann by talking to all of her friends about her. I wanted to shake him and say, "If you want to get to know her, talk to her!" And when they finally got around to talking about their relationship, some of the conversations felt more like labor negotiations than personal, "how do we make this work" conversations. I know everything is not always romance and candy and flowers (I'm married after all!), but their relationship was just so stilted.

I think I could have moved past many of these "complaints"—especially as the pace and mystery picked up. The one thing I really couldn't get past, though, was the fact that Ann wrote all of Dee's books. It really threw me for a loop, and I had a hard time distinguishing fact from fiction. So, Ann is Dee? Or Dee is Ann? Or Ann has some of Dee's characteristics? But Ann (as Dee?) wrote all of Dee's books? It was confusing and strange, and every time it was mentioned it pulled me completely out of the story. I would try to wrap my mind around it and then move past it, and then it was mentioned again and my head started spinning again. Perhaps readers who have not read any of Dee's previous books won't find this so strange, but I just couldn't get past it.

I'm glad I stuck with it and finished the book, as the last half was the best part. However, I was still disappointed by the book as a whole. I'm hopeful that Henderson will be able to recapture that quality for excellent storytelling that she has demonstrated in the past and continue to wow readers for years to come. [2 stars]

I received a free copy of this book from Bethany House and CFBA in exchange for my fair and honest review.

(Be sure to check out other reviews of Full Disclosure before making your decision about this book. Mine is only one opinion. You can find a list of other bloggers participating in this blog tour here.)

About the Author
Dee Henderson is the bestselling, award-winning author of 15 previous novels, including the acclaimed O'MALLEY series and UNCOMMON HEROES series. She is a lifelong resident of Illinois.

Dee Henderson Online

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Full Disclosure Sneak Peek