The Unsung Hero

While a Navy SEAL chases an international terrorist in a sleepy Massachusetts waterfront town, an accomplished pediatrician struggles with her rekindled passion for their unfinished high school romance. Reader William Dufris's primary assets are his contemporary emotional range and the almost palpable color he brings to descriptive phrases. His flexible voice coaxes the listener to use more senses than just listening, a skill especially suitable for the romance genre. While he injects whimsy and energy into the text, his vocal characterizations are lacking, especially for the female characters. His attempt at a Texas accent is especially disappointing. Dufris would do better with a straight read. N.M.C. (c) AudioFile 2004, Portland, Maine

June 5, 2000
Four plot lines are expertly interwoven to create a love story-cum-thriller in the latest work by veteran romance author Brockmann (Bodyguard), winner of two Romantic Times Career Achievement Awards and a two-time RITA finalist. Navy SEAL Lt. Tom Paoletti, on medical leave after a near-fatal head injury, returns to his New England hometown and is drawn into an unresolved relationship with the girl he left behind. Kelly Ashton, now a pediatrician, is caring for her dying father when Tom returns to disrupt--and enrich--her life. Then Tom glimpses a terrorist he once pursued who's supposed to be dead, but his antagonistic superiors attribute the unlikely sighting to his head injury. Brockmann keeps the tension high, while also revealing the heartbreaking wartime secret shared by Kelly's father and Tom's beloved uncle. Another subplot involving Tom's niece also plays nicely into the dramatic finale as Tom and a makeshift team must take on terrorist bombers unaided. With its shift in focus from romance to the action subplot, this novel would make a terrific movie.