Can't Hide from Me

4.5When I need of something good I can always count on [a:Cordelia Kingsbridge 5781497 Cordelia Kingsbridge https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1381577348p2/5781497.jpg] and she didn't disappoint. She doesn't know how to write cookie cutter characters and combined with an AB by [a:Nick J. Russo 8141120 Nick J. Russo https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/m_50x66-82093808bca726cb3249a493fbd3bd0f.png]? KRYPTONITE.As usual CK delivered a story populated by diverse characters, strong women, and unapologetically sexual beings. Brava! The icing on the cake is a great suspense story where I didn't have to do a total suspension of disbelief. Only a bit.Charles Hunter and Ángel Medina are ATF agents whose burn-the-sheets affair ended badly. Spectacularly so. Two years later Charles is on a “routine” extraction mission of an agent who has been undercover in a Mexican cartel and of course it turns out to be Ángel. Once these two reconnect there is no force that can keep them apart. Not past recriminations, not work restrictions, not crazy stalkers. The connection is too strong and CK does a great job of showing it on page.“Fucking Angel yesterday hadn't gotten him out of Charles's system. If anything, he'd burrowed deeper inside, coursing through Charles's blood like the first hit of heroin after two years clean, all the more potent for having gone so long without. Charles had lost his tolerance.”I loved that though Ángel felt betrayed by and still carried a torch for Charles he didn't cease acting on his sexual appetite, even in situations where others might disapprove. I liked that he's a make lemonade kind of guy doing the best he could with the shitty hand he was dealt. I love his resilience and his sense of humor. I'm more than a little in love with him. There were aspects of their previous relationship that could've easily been resolved by that thing called “talking” but we know that's not always easy. I can see them having a long happy future together.I loved that though both MCs were other than white it wasn't a belabored part of the story. It was just a fact of life that is normal for anyone who lives in XXIst Century America or the world at large. My only niggle is with these omnipotent and omniscient villains who seem to populate fiction. I find them annoying and exhausting.