boeklogboek: Nora Roberts – Without a Trace

The fourth book in the O'Hurley series, published January 30, 1990.
Genre: romantic suspense/contemporary romance
Cover: generic, though my cover is light blue with two chairs and a parasol on a beach.

Trace had turned his back on responsiblity and commitment long ago. Now he lived the way he wanted, did what he wanted when he wanted. But that was all going to change…
Gillian Fitzpatrick had responsibilities, commitments – her brother had disappeared and she was frightened and desperate. Trace was her only hope. He had the connections, the expertise … and the guts. But just what was she going to have to do to convince him to help her?

Trace O’Hurley grew up on the road, travelling with his parents and three younger sisters from second rate dive to the next. Singing and dancing, following his father’s dream, once they would make it, and become famous. They never had a house of themselves, living in dingy hotel rooms. Of course, it never happened, and one day Trace left to pursue the life he himself wanted. To travel, to see the world, to experience it. And he did. But soon he got recruited by some secret agency. Trace was good at his work, but now he is disillusioned. He was shot and many months of deep cover work were ruined. Time to retire, to live the good life. Starting with a few weeks of vacation, to make up his mind.
But a young woman finds him in Mexico, where Trace is busy getting drunk in a cheap bar. His friend and former mentor have send her, told her Trace is the only one who can help her.
Gillian Fitzpatrick is a scientist, like her father and brother, and they have been working on the Horizon project for decades. Trying to find a cure to radiation poisoning, and they are close. But now her brother and his little daughter are kidnapped by Hammer, a terrorist group. The same group that Trace was trying to infiltrate for the past year. Trace doesn’t want to take the job, he is feeling burned out, and he just wants out. But when she offers him a hundred thousand dollars, enough to get out and live the good life somewhere on the Canary Islands he is tempted. But when she tells him his friend did not die of a stroke, but was killed by Hammer, he knows he has to take the case. To avenge his friend, and to help this very pretty and naïve scientist. He knows the agency will find the formula more important than the people involved, while he will make her brother and niece his priority.

She has been followed, her hotel room is in ruins. But as there was nothing for the bad guys to find, they will not give up! Gillian has no choice but to stay with Trace in his room. Gillian has a photographic memory and she can make new notes of the latest breakthrough she and her brother had. With a few alterations, just in case. She agrees to become the bate, everything to get her brother and niece home safe. Trace doesn’t want her along with him, he works solo, but she won’t give up, and he has no other choice but to take her with him to Morocco, where the trail leads.

I enjoyed this story, although Gillian got on my nerves a few times. Always wanting to go with Trace when he visited his contacts, afraid he would keep something from her, but never thinking about the danger she puts the both of them in. Naïve as she is, she will just blow his cover. When the attraction between them gets harder to ignore, Trace knows she is not meant for a one night stand, and he is not a man for commitment. But he just can’t refuse her very much, and he knows she will just follow him when he tries to leave her behind.
I liked Trace, he is the good guy, and he does miss his family a lot. Still, he has no intention of facing his father ever again, after the last time. The man will just never understand him. Gillian has that in common, at least partly, her father never understood why she moved to the States to work, instead of staying on as his assistant.

The bad guys are creepy and fanatics and Trace really scores points for pointing out to Gillian that their research is doomed. What if they do find a cure? Who will decide who gets it, it is bound to be very expensive. Gillian already had her own doubts, but Trace gives her something more to think about.
I enjoyed the ending of the book, the whole clan together, and I really would not mind a short sequel, to find out what happens next with them all. I could envision Quinn and Trace working together for instance.

7 stars