Dark of Night by Suzanne Brockmann

There has been so much angst and controversy over this book that I'm a little hesitant to wade into the fray. However, if I skip reviewing any book that's difficult to write about I'll never make my goal for the challenge, so here goes nothing.

I usually try not to give too much away when I write reviews. In this case all the major spoilers have been out for weeks so I'm not working that hard at avoiding them. Anyone who is spoiler free & wants to stay that way should just stop reading.



This is the 14th book in the Team Sixteen/Troubleshooters series and the wrap up to a 5 book story arc. Because of that I think it's inevitable that opinions about this book will depend to a large extent on the points of view people had going in. Here are mine:

• I'm not a dedicated Sophia/Deck shipper. More than one of the couples in this series is rather dysfunctional, but to me Sophia and Deck always seemed a little extreme even by Brockmann standards. I was willing to be convinced, if that's where she had decided to go, but I don't feel like it's an automatic travesty for them not to be together.

• I've always thought that Deck was a mess and needed to get over himself a bit, but I've also always liked him.

• I'm a fan of Tess & Nash.

• I've never liked Tracy.

• I like Dave fine but I have long thought that someone needed to slap him and yell, "Snap out of it!" a la Cher in Moonstruck. The mopey martyr thing does no one any favors.

• I have a mild dislike for Sophia. This is caused by two things. First, a knee jerk reaction to the fact that everyone treats her like she's the greatest thing ever. Second, compassion fatigue brought on by the endless revelations about all the terrible things that have happened to her. By the time this book gave us what I hope to God was the last of the story it felt like The Perils of Pauline.
  

The plot of Dark of Night has been described all over the place so I'll just say that the story has four main elements.

1. The suspense plot, which has the group attempting to figure out what is going on at the Agency, who wants Nash dead and why.

2. Tess & Nash's relationship issues

3. Sophia and Dave

4. Deck and Tracy

The suspense plot worked well for me. My graduate work focuses on national security issues so I'm familiar with the debate in the intelligence community about how much secrecy and compartmentalization are too much. They're vital up to a point, but taken to extremes they create dangerous loopholes and blind spots. The people who are most effected are often the least able to see when it's gone too far. I liked the fact that sorting it all out gave us a chance to see some of my favorite characters from past books.

I liked the way things were resolved for Tess and Nash. He didn't get over all his issues overnight, but they established a foundation that made it clear they'll be OK.

Now we come to the tougher part---the two new pairings.

I don't hate Sophia & Dave together, but I wasn't fully satisfied either. I think that Sophia's side of the equation basically made sense. Sometimes the guy you think you want isn't the guy you need. From her side it's a friends to lovers story and that's fine. My problem is with Dave. First, I'm not exactly sure how pre-Dark of Night Dave connects to SuperDave. More importantly, at the end of the story Sophia & Dave aren't a team. As far as Dave is concerned Sophia is still the goddess and he is her acolyte, the unworthy nerd who got lucky enough to have her love him. I really wanted better for him. I wanted him to realize his own value and have a relationship where he is an equal partner.

I think that would have been more likely if he had solved his problems with his smarts instead of morphing into SuperDave. I also think it would have been better if he had developed a more realistic view of Sophia. Her "clear the air" conversation with Deck was a perfect example of the fact that she has always seen herself more clearly than the rest of the characters seem to. When she was introduced she had layers and shades of gray, but over time all the adoration and "poor, brave, fragile Sophia" and the pining away for Deck left her portrayed as pretty one dimensional. It's tough to have an equal partnership under those circumstances. These issues could be dealt with in the future, but honestly they've already taken up enough story space so I'm not sure that I would actually want that. It should have been done in this book.

As for Deck and Tracy, I do hate that they ended up together. I didn't like Tracy before and on balance my opinion didn't change. In fact, there were a few things that made me dislike her more. Nonspoiler example: If my husband died and someone came into my house and washed the last clothes I would ever have that smelled like him I wouldn't thank her. I don't care how I seemed to be dealing with my grief, or with whom, she'd be lucky if I didn't yank off one of her limbs and beat her with the stump.

I never thought that Tracy was dumb exactly, just really careless and ditzy. That didn't make it any easier to believe in New! Improved! SmartTracy!, now with 40% less poor judgment. She didn't figure out that Nash was still alive because she was smart. She figured it out because, as the nosy neighbor, she had information that the others didn't have. I couldn't quite figure out where she got the gall to be upset because she thought she was the last to know. She's the receptionist. Not exactly a vital link in the "need to know" chain. I also don't see how her believing the most simplistic possible interpretation of The Secret is supposed to make me see her in a whole new light. She did some things that actually were smart, but she also did other things that were quite dumb. I ended up feeling like her characterization needed another trip through rewrite.

Irritation aside, the real issue is that I simply think Deck and Tracy are wrong for each other for reasons that have nothing to do with intelligence. Deck finally started to let go of his issues because Tracy accepted him. I really appreciated the fact that she was nonjudgmental about his kink. She judged him for everything else, but not for that. Truly sex positive attitudes are far more rare in mainstream romances than they should be so I give her full marks for that. Still, that doesn't mean that she & Deck are meant for each other. BDSM is part of who Deck is, while for Tracy it's a fun game to play. Neither of those attitudes is wrong, but they don't belong together over the long haul. Deck is actually making Tracy's old mistake by thinking good sex = love. Tracy is making a whole new mistake by thinking that not be considered an idiot = love.

I wish that Deck & Tracy were a "happy for now". Tracy is Deck's first honest sexual relationship and he's her first chance to be treated as an equal. That's great for both of them even if it isn't meant to last. It should be the relationship equivilent of a bike with training wheels. Deck can get comfortable with his kink and Tracy can figure out how adult relationships work. They could enjoy the experience and when it runs its course they could move on while staying friends. No trauma, no drama.

Unfortunately in Romancelandia once the mutual "I love yous" have been said the couple is pretty much carved in stone. That's too bad because Deck deserves more. While reading this I kept thinking of Joey Hill's story Natural Law, which features Mac and Violet. Mac is a total Alpha who is also a sexual submissive and Violet is the Dom who turns out to be his perfect match. Deck deserves a Violet and Tracy most definitely isn't it.


I have no idea what grade this all averages out to, so I'm not even going to try to assign one.