INTO THE NIGHT (Troubleshooters #5; three stars)
Description from Goodreads: It was supposed to be a "dog and pony show"-an elaborate demonstration of SEAL rescue techniques-to celebrate a presidential visit to a California naval base. Professional, no-nonsense White House staffer Joan DaCosta arrives early to scope out the area. Assigned to be her SEAL liaison is Lt. (jg) Mike Muldoon, a born leader-strong, decisive, tough, and fearless.
Against her better judgment, Joan finds herself drawn to the handsome young officer. Skilled at being "one of the guys" in the mostly male world of politics, she is dismayed when Muldoon breaks through her defenses. While tension mounts between them, fueling their growing attraction, a far more sinister danger is lurking, as terrorists plot a daring attack against the president. To protect their commander in chief, Joan and Muldoon must not only risk their hearts-but their very lives. . . .
Yeah, okay, so that whole "risk not only their hearts -- but their very lives" thing? DOESN'T HAPPEN. Here's yer TOC:
#1: NOTHING HAPPENS IN THIS BOOK
#2: Joan and Mike are okay I guess
#3: Mary Lou is great! Shut up, Sam.
#4: This Is Super Uncool, Everyone
#1. This book is disappointing. I still liked it more than #3, largely because I liked the characters more, but man. The previous book had finally put all the tools in Brockmann's box to work properly -- great romance, fast paced action and suspense, compelling flashbacks, cute B-plot. Coming on the heels of all that, well, this was a let down.
There is no real suspense or action in this book. The plot implied by that blurb -- the terrorist threat to the president -- is basically non-existent until SUDDENLY!! AT THE END!!, and then over in about ten pages. The build to it, in as much as there is any, comes in two forms: first, Tom Paoletti (hi Tom! been awhile) repeatedly says he has a bad feeling about the Presidential visit. Thank you, Obi-Wan. We're not given any particular reason why, just that Tom's gut hunches are worth taking seriously. Okay. Second, Mary Lou has a mysterious stalker using her to move weapons on to the base. Those are all Stalker POV scenes, and involve Mary Lou. Mike and Joan, the book's actual protagonists? Never enter that plot line at all. In other words, there's a vague, mysterious thing happening, with no build, and no action, and no involvement from any of the characters until it explodes at the end. That doesn't really make for a strong book.
The book has three distinct storylines going on (Mike and Joan; Mary Lou and Sam; the flashbacks) as well as the not-well-developed terrorist plot. But none of those stories really feel like they build. The big mid-point -- Brooke Bryant (the President's daughter)'s visit -- goes horribly wrong when Brooke gets publicly drunk and mostly naked in front of cameras, but there's basically no fallout from it. Mike and Joan fight and make up (and I think this is when they finally bang, so there's that), but the next morning, Brooke checks herself into rehab. We don't see Joan's job (as the PR person in charge of Brooke's visit) in danger, or her scurrying to make things right or change the narrative or do anything at all. It's barely mentioned after that. Because there are no consequences, it doesn't raise the stakes or up the tension particularly the way big midpoint events usually do. Alas.
(Also, minor side note, it's awkward that Brooke is referred to as the President's "wild child" and treated as if she's an out of control teen/20-something when she's actually 40. Her age is clearly meant to demonstrate that Mike is interested in women who are older than he is, but the character is still treated as an adolescent.)
Speaking of things that don't raise the stakes or tension, Jules, Max, and Alyssa show up in San Diego due to unspecified terrorist activity. They're only in a couple of scenes, but eventually we find out they've just taken out an entire terrorist cell, and that another agent was killed and Jules was hit badly and hospitalized. We learn this when Sam does. We don't see it happen. We don't ever find out anything else about it, except that Jules is going to be okay. The only thing it does is give Sam reason to worry about Alyssa. That's it. And since Sam is nothing but a mopey jerk in this book anyway, it doesn't even do much of that, and instead it just makes it super weird that such an important event is a complete non-issue in the story. I'm glad we didn't end up with another subplot, because the book drags enough as-is, but it's a bizarre choice to have one of the only exciting events happen entirely off the page.
The flashbacks returned to their distracting form, too. They did a decent job of echoing the main romance plot -- the dude knows they're in love and is willing to wait for her to accept that in both cases -- but it didn't really add anything, and the story about his harrowing experiences in the marines, and the formation of the frogmen precursor to the SEALs, didn't go anywhere. He finally got to suggest his idea to form a group of swimming spies … only to discover that was already in the works. Cool, I guess?
All that said, I do think it's fascinating how the tone of the series shifts with this book, as it was the first one written post-9/11. The first four books were fairly vague about the fighting terrorism aspect -- it was there, but without a lot of specifics. Even just looking at the previous books' opening action sequences, you have a rescue mission set somewhere vague (Tom), a training op (Nils), dudes hanging out in a bar (Stan), and another training op (Ken). INTO THE NIGHT opens with the team actively fighting al-Qaeda, including asking if the terrorist cell they're taking out includes Bin Laden.
It's also the first book that deals with politics at all -- and yet it goes out of its way to avoid aligning with any particular parties or policies. It's an alternate universe featuring a president named Bryant. As my BFF put it, "I just picture President Bartlet, and I'm pretty sure Suzanne Brockmann does, too." But I don't think we're ever told whether Bryant is a Democrat or Republican. (I'd guess Dem, since later books make it clear he's in favor of gay marriage, but I don't think it's actually stated.) It's also a series about American forces who carry out covert operations in other countries, and none of that is ever questioned or politicized -- the conflicts in the series don't stem from anyone questioning American foreign policy. Individual characters grapple with what it means to go to war, but mostly just the toll it takes on individuals in the military and their families. Not every character is thrilled with the war in Iraq, on the rare occasion it's mentioned in the series, but no one comes out against it, either.
Basically, it's an aspect of the series I also avoid thinking about. I'm reading for romance and adventure, but this book makes it a bit more top of mind without ever actually stating anything or taking a position. It's a pretty neat bit of tightrope walking on Brockmann's part.
#2: Mike and Joan are the book's protagonists. And Mike, alas, is another one of those SEALs: upstanding and true, alpha male, no other real discernable personality traits. For real, though, he and Johnny Nilsson are functionally the same character -- notably attractive 25-year-old SEALs with careers on the rise who both fall for women in their early 30s. And hey, no shade. They're both pleasant to read about, if a bit bland, and are perfectly able to fulfil their narrative duty as romantic heroes. And at this point in the review process, it's probably pretty clear that I'm biased and enjoy the sharper-edged heroes more -- Ken, Sam, and later on, Izzy Zanella -- so there is that. Shrug.
Joan, however, is pretty rad: an ambitious career woman who's quick on her feet and great with banter. She has a temper and lashes out verbally on occasion, and she's smart and funny and interesting.
They make a fairly nice couple. Their biggest stumbling block, internal-conflict-wise, is Joan's discomfort with dating a younger man. That dragged on a bit, well past the point where they'd admitted they were hot for each other, but it was fine. What I wish had been drawn out more was the novel's mild attempts at reversing their gender dynamic. Mike is a prettyboy -- in the third book, when Stan tries to set him up with Teri, he confesses that he doesn't pursue women, doesn't even know where to start, because women always come after him. He's used to be objectified, and all of his hook ups have involved him playing the part of someone else's fantasy. Apparently they've also all been with career women who want to bang him and then vanish, leaving him awkwardly emotionally invested and wishing for more. Or … something. It wasn't totally clear, tbh. Anyway, the idea of Mike as an object rather than active is interesting, but not quite teased out enough.
The idea of Joan as "one of the guys," as referenced in the book's blurb, is even less present. She thinks it about herself once, but the book doesn't explain what that means to her or in what way she is guy-like. She does briefly lust after a couple of dudes in the beginning (including Tom) and wonders if that makes her the equivalent of the creepy admiral who apparently hits on anyone female who visits the base. But that's as close as she gets. And it's not like the potential gender expectation flipping here even extends to pursuer/pursuee -- Mike is still the one who pursues Joan. (And although he jokes early on about being into women who use whips and will tell him what to do, the only one of their sex scenes that introduces power dynamics puts it 100% on Mike's terms, so it gets to be his fantasy instead of the career woman thing, which … okay, I guess?)
Baaasically they were both fine characters, Joan a bit more interesting than Mike, but their arch was a bit muddled and couldn't quite decide what it wanted them to be. Interesting ideas, not much follow through. Alas.
#3: Unexpectedly, by far and away, Mary Lou is the best character in this book. Mary Lou is Sam's wife, introduced in the third book when we find out she's pregnant, and expanded on a bit in the fourth, when we find out she and Sam are miserable with each other, and that Mary Lou is a recovering alcoholic and also racist. She had, until this point, been utterly unsympathetic, and given that this book confirms she tampered with the condoms to get pregnant on purpose, she's at the bottom of a pretty big likability hole.
And yet.
Mary Lou, in this book, is redeemed and painted as sympathetic. The racism isn't handwaved away, though it is softened -- Mary Lou never uses slurs, for example, or says anything overtly prejudiced. But she does think interracial dating and marriages are problematic -- not because the couple can't love each other, but because of what other people think, questions like where they'd live, who they'd be friends with, how they'd raise their children. When called on that racism, she admits that she knows it's wrong, but she'd just be too afraid to be one of the people who tries to change things. And she is forced to confront this head on -- while she's miserable, lonely, and barely managing to stay sober, she runs into a local landscaper, Ibraham, who quickly becomes her close friend and confidant, and later she realizes she's falling in love with him.
Ibraham is very dark-skinned and Saudi Arabian. The first time she meets him, she's uncomfortable with the idea of "an Arab" wandering around in her neighborhood. Through the course of the book, she sees that same reaction in other people and grows increasingly disgusted with it as she confronts her own prejudice. Which isn't to say she lets go of that racism easily or smoothly -- when she realizes someone is about to assassinate the president (and that it was someone who'd had access to her car) she immediately assumes it's Ibraham and his brothers, until she finds out he was the victim of an attack, not a perpetrator.
The book also paints Mary Lou as sympathetic by making it clear why she so desperately wanted to marry Sam. She had a miserable childhood, with an alcoholic mother who neglected her and her older sister, and a string of her mother's abusive boyfriends (one of whom raped her older sister). All Mary Lou wants is security. She envisions marrying a SEAL as a way to get that, and a happily ever after: perfect husband, perfect child, perfect house. She's always told herself those are the things she needs to be happy, and as the book continues, we find out that she is just as miserable as Sam. He's not who she imagined and she never really got to know him, and she has no idea how to make him happy or make him love her.
She does try. She gets sober and attends AA meetings almost every night, because she wants to make sure their daughter has a better mother than she did. She cooks, cleans, and does her best to never complain or say or do anything that would upset Sam, which as far as she knows is anything that involves having a spine. But she has no idea how to be what Sam wants, which is, of course, Alyssa. She knows he's still in love with her -- he talks in his sleep, and he dreams about Alyssa constantly -- and she hates that she can't make this work. She realizes she trapped herself, but has no idea how to escape.
There are a couple of heartbreaking scenes with her. The one that stands out the most to me is when she runs into Kelly Ashton (still not Kelly Paoletti! a running sub-sub-subplot in the last few books) and gets a pity invite to a wives-and-girlfriends party while the SEALs are all deployed. She doesn't fit in at all. A lot of it is class-based -- she doesn't fit in with the well educated, successful women, and she knows it -- and it doesn't help that there's drinking at the party, which she can't partake in. Joan is there, meeting everyone for the first time, and they're filling her in on gossip… until they remember that Mary Lou is there, and that the gossip about her and Sam is that they're miserable, and that Mary Lou got pregnant on purpose. It's awful.
Also heartbreaking, though it's not from her POV, is when her next door neighbor, Donny, has a crisis. Donny is "crazy" -- more on that in a bit -- and Sam has always thought of him as a freak. But Mary Lou is friendly with him, and sometimes helps him out when he's not able to leave his house. Eventually there's a scene where he has a crisis, and she and Sam are there. She's the one who knows him well enough to help, snapping at Sam about what to do and how to react. His first reaction is to wonder if they're having an affair -- based on literally nothing except that they're friends, which, wow, Sam, what a dick -- but having her yell at him is the only time he finds her to be even mildly interesting or worth noticing. So he uses that as a chance to try to finally mention divorce to her, and upon hearing that she immediately shuts back up, because at no point has he ever said that hey, guess what, having opinions and a backbone are good things and he'd rather actually talk to her than have a Stepford wannabe wife.
Actually, "wow, Sam, what a dick," is pretty much his whole thing in this book. He thinks that he once -- literally, once, in their entire marriage -- tried to talk to Mary Lou, and when she didn't immediately respond the way he wanted her to, he decided she was never worth talking to again. He spends as much time out of the house as he can, actively avoiding her -- which means largely avoiding Haley, their daughter. He admits she's been impressive with regards to her sobriety, but he doesn't seem to do anything to help her. He's spent months making it very clear that he doesn't care about her at all, that he finds her embarrassing and awkward, that she's hurting his career, and that he resents her. The best thing he can say about his role in the marriage is that he doesn't cheat on her, even though he wants to and is love with someone else. He's at best a mediocre father. Wow, some hero.
The more sympathetic Mary Lou becomes, the worse Sam comes across. I'm genuinely relieved that the next book wraps up the Sam/Alyssa arch, because instead of the super hot chemistry from the earlier books, this was just Sam being completely intolerable. Seriously, shut up Sam, you douche.
It's no wonder Mary Lou is the one who's being targeted by the stalker. He sees a lonely, desperate, unhappy woman (who also has access to the naval base, and whose car trunk doesn't lock) and tries to get close to her by being a sympathetic ear, and is successful enough to get weapons onto the base to be used in an attack. Luckily, he pushes just a bit too hard, and Mary Lou recognizes he's being creepy and turns to Ibraham instead, and puts together what her car was being used for just in time. She calls in an emergency and runs for it, serves Sam with divorce papers (GOOD), grabs Haley and goes into hiding. (I point all this out only because it's the springboard into the next book, which I didn't know at the time.) Sam doesn't notice that any of this is happening, and dismisses Mary Lou when she tries to tell him. Arrrrgh.
#4: So the series as a whole is not without its problems, but this book has two giant ones that stood out to me and made me cringe.
The first is when Jules and Sam are chatting. I am generally all for the Sam/Jules friendship, but then they start talking about Alyssa, Jules says that Alyssa's career is doing great, and Sam breaks out with, "Yeah, way to go. Sleeping with the boss'll really make those promotions happen." Which Jules follows with a hearty "fuck you" … because he's calling Sam out on his jealousy. Not because Sam is casually suggesting Alyssa is getting promoted for sleeping with her boss. Which is a pretty fucking rotten thing to suggest. Sam then doubles down on it, and Jules responds the same way.
Okay, so Sam, at least, is coming from a place of miserable jealousy and bitterness. Maybe he doesn't want to give Alyssa the benefit of a doubt. But Jules is supposed to be her best friend and partner. They both know Alyssa is a great agent, and neither one seems to have any issue with the idea that she's only getting promoted because what they believe is her relationship with Max. Jules's defense of her never suggests that hey, maybe she deserves promotions because she's talented.
It's. So. Gross. Shut up, both of you.
And then there's this: "Crazy" Donny. Donny -- Mary Lou's neighbor, who is also coincidentally Joan's older brother -- is a shut in with some completely unspecified mental disorder. He's certainly paranoid and anxious, and it manifests in just about every cliche you can imagine. He refuses to leave the house, he believes in aliens, he literally wears tinfoil hats. He gets "crazier" when he's off his meds, which of course he is for most of the book, because he believes someone has been tampering with them to get to him. Bonus cliches: he's a computer genius but can't interact with people.
Most of this is only framed in how tough it is for Joan and the rest of his family. For example, their father couldn't handle him and split after their mother died.
Ugggggggh.
Look, I'm not an expert on mental health. I just know some problematic tropes when I see them, and Donny is just a bunch of those thrown in a bag. What actual, specific illness(es) he has is never specified. He has no interiority of his own, and is pretty much just a plot point, and definitely not a POV character. In fact, spoiler for the next book: he's killed, off page; Sam is a little bit bummed, but his death is far overshadowed by other characters' injuries, and we never hear even a little bit about how Joan feels about it. And of course, he's killed because he could ID the terrorist they were looking for -- had been able to all along -- but no one listened to him. And if that was the point, that would be one thing, but there's no sense in the narrative that hey! maybe you should listen to him! just because he's non-neurotypical doesn't mean he's useless or stupid! ...but no, it's just that Sam figures out that some of his "crazy" rantings actually meant something, but it's too late.
Basically, that's not how mental illness works, and is a pretty problematic, not to mention utterly played out, trope. And presenting disabilities solely through the lens of how tough it is on the disabled person's family is also hella gross.
Anyway, this book baaaarely holds on to its three-star rating. Mike and Joan are fine, and Mary Lou is great, but the "plot" is non-existent, the pacing is bad, and there's some really awful stuff to wade through. It isn't boring, but it isn't very good, either.
BROCKMANN-ISM TALLY
Against her better judgment, Joan finds herself drawn to the handsome young officer. Skilled at being "one of the guys" in the mostly male world of politics, she is dismayed when Muldoon breaks through her defenses. While tension mounts between them, fueling their growing attraction, a far more sinister danger is lurking, as terrorists plot a daring attack against the president. To protect their commander in chief, Joan and Muldoon must not only risk their hearts-but their very lives. . . .
Yeah, okay, so that whole "risk not only their hearts -- but their very lives" thing? DOESN'T HAPPEN. Here's yer TOC:
#1: NOTHING HAPPENS IN THIS BOOK
#2: Joan and Mike are okay I guess
#3: Mary Lou is great! Shut up, Sam.
#4: This Is Super Uncool, Everyone
#1. This book is disappointing. I still liked it more than #3, largely because I liked the characters more, but man. The previous book had finally put all the tools in Brockmann's box to work properly -- great romance, fast paced action and suspense, compelling flashbacks, cute B-plot. Coming on the heels of all that, well, this was a let down.
There is no real suspense or action in this book. The plot implied by that blurb -- the terrorist threat to the president -- is basically non-existent until SUDDENLY!! AT THE END!!, and then over in about ten pages. The build to it, in as much as there is any, comes in two forms: first, Tom Paoletti (hi Tom! been awhile) repeatedly says he has a bad feeling about the Presidential visit. Thank you, Obi-Wan. We're not given any particular reason why, just that Tom's gut hunches are worth taking seriously. Okay. Second, Mary Lou has a mysterious stalker using her to move weapons on to the base. Those are all Stalker POV scenes, and involve Mary Lou. Mike and Joan, the book's actual protagonists? Never enter that plot line at all. In other words, there's a vague, mysterious thing happening, with no build, and no action, and no involvement from any of the characters until it explodes at the end. That doesn't really make for a strong book.
The book has three distinct storylines going on (Mike and Joan; Mary Lou and Sam; the flashbacks) as well as the not-well-developed terrorist plot. But none of those stories really feel like they build. The big mid-point -- Brooke Bryant (the President's daughter)'s visit -- goes horribly wrong when Brooke gets publicly drunk and mostly naked in front of cameras, but there's basically no fallout from it. Mike and Joan fight and make up (and I think this is when they finally bang, so there's that), but the next morning, Brooke checks herself into rehab. We don't see Joan's job (as the PR person in charge of Brooke's visit) in danger, or her scurrying to make things right or change the narrative or do anything at all. It's barely mentioned after that. Because there are no consequences, it doesn't raise the stakes or up the tension particularly the way big midpoint events usually do. Alas.
(Also, minor side note, it's awkward that Brooke is referred to as the President's "wild child" and treated as if she's an out of control teen/20-something when she's actually 40. Her age is clearly meant to demonstrate that Mike is interested in women who are older than he is, but the character is still treated as an adolescent.)
Speaking of things that don't raise the stakes or tension, Jules, Max, and Alyssa show up in San Diego due to unspecified terrorist activity. They're only in a couple of scenes, but eventually we find out they've just taken out an entire terrorist cell, and that another agent was killed and Jules was hit badly and hospitalized. We learn this when Sam does. We don't see it happen. We don't ever find out anything else about it, except that Jules is going to be okay. The only thing it does is give Sam reason to worry about Alyssa. That's it. And since Sam is nothing but a mopey jerk in this book anyway, it doesn't even do much of that, and instead it just makes it super weird that such an important event is a complete non-issue in the story. I'm glad we didn't end up with another subplot, because the book drags enough as-is, but it's a bizarre choice to have one of the only exciting events happen entirely off the page.
The flashbacks returned to their distracting form, too. They did a decent job of echoing the main romance plot -- the dude knows they're in love and is willing to wait for her to accept that in both cases -- but it didn't really add anything, and the story about his harrowing experiences in the marines, and the formation of the frogmen precursor to the SEALs, didn't go anywhere. He finally got to suggest his idea to form a group of swimming spies … only to discover that was already in the works. Cool, I guess?
All that said, I do think it's fascinating how the tone of the series shifts with this book, as it was the first one written post-9/11. The first four books were fairly vague about the fighting terrorism aspect -- it was there, but without a lot of specifics. Even just looking at the previous books' opening action sequences, you have a rescue mission set somewhere vague (Tom), a training op (Nils), dudes hanging out in a bar (Stan), and another training op (Ken). INTO THE NIGHT opens with the team actively fighting al-Qaeda, including asking if the terrorist cell they're taking out includes Bin Laden.
It's also the first book that deals with politics at all -- and yet it goes out of its way to avoid aligning with any particular parties or policies. It's an alternate universe featuring a president named Bryant. As my BFF put it, "I just picture President Bartlet, and I'm pretty sure Suzanne Brockmann does, too." But I don't think we're ever told whether Bryant is a Democrat or Republican. (I'd guess Dem, since later books make it clear he's in favor of gay marriage, but I don't think it's actually stated.) It's also a series about American forces who carry out covert operations in other countries, and none of that is ever questioned or politicized -- the conflicts in the series don't stem from anyone questioning American foreign policy. Individual characters grapple with what it means to go to war, but mostly just the toll it takes on individuals in the military and their families. Not every character is thrilled with the war in Iraq, on the rare occasion it's mentioned in the series, but no one comes out against it, either.
Basically, it's an aspect of the series I also avoid thinking about. I'm reading for romance and adventure, but this book makes it a bit more top of mind without ever actually stating anything or taking a position. It's a pretty neat bit of tightrope walking on Brockmann's part.
#2: Mike and Joan are the book's protagonists. And Mike, alas, is another one of those SEALs: upstanding and true, alpha male, no other real discernable personality traits. For real, though, he and Johnny Nilsson are functionally the same character -- notably attractive 25-year-old SEALs with careers on the rise who both fall for women in their early 30s. And hey, no shade. They're both pleasant to read about, if a bit bland, and are perfectly able to fulfil their narrative duty as romantic heroes. And at this point in the review process, it's probably pretty clear that I'm biased and enjoy the sharper-edged heroes more -- Ken, Sam, and later on, Izzy Zanella -- so there is that. Shrug.
Joan, however, is pretty rad: an ambitious career woman who's quick on her feet and great with banter. She has a temper and lashes out verbally on occasion, and she's smart and funny and interesting.
They make a fairly nice couple. Their biggest stumbling block, internal-conflict-wise, is Joan's discomfort with dating a younger man. That dragged on a bit, well past the point where they'd admitted they were hot for each other, but it was fine. What I wish had been drawn out more was the novel's mild attempts at reversing their gender dynamic. Mike is a prettyboy -- in the third book, when Stan tries to set him up with Teri, he confesses that he doesn't pursue women, doesn't even know where to start, because women always come after him. He's used to be objectified, and all of his hook ups have involved him playing the part of someone else's fantasy. Apparently they've also all been with career women who want to bang him and then vanish, leaving him awkwardly emotionally invested and wishing for more. Or … something. It wasn't totally clear, tbh. Anyway, the idea of Mike as an object rather than active is interesting, but not quite teased out enough.
The idea of Joan as "one of the guys," as referenced in the book's blurb, is even less present. She thinks it about herself once, but the book doesn't explain what that means to her or in what way she is guy-like. She does briefly lust after a couple of dudes in the beginning (including Tom) and wonders if that makes her the equivalent of the creepy admiral who apparently hits on anyone female who visits the base. But that's as close as she gets. And it's not like the potential gender expectation flipping here even extends to pursuer/pursuee -- Mike is still the one who pursues Joan. (And although he jokes early on about being into women who use whips and will tell him what to do, the only one of their sex scenes that introduces power dynamics puts it 100% on Mike's terms, so it gets to be his fantasy instead of the career woman thing, which … okay, I guess?)
Baaasically they were both fine characters, Joan a bit more interesting than Mike, but their arch was a bit muddled and couldn't quite decide what it wanted them to be. Interesting ideas, not much follow through. Alas.
#3: Unexpectedly, by far and away, Mary Lou is the best character in this book. Mary Lou is Sam's wife, introduced in the third book when we find out she's pregnant, and expanded on a bit in the fourth, when we find out she and Sam are miserable with each other, and that Mary Lou is a recovering alcoholic and also racist. She had, until this point, been utterly unsympathetic, and given that this book confirms she tampered with the condoms to get pregnant on purpose, she's at the bottom of a pretty big likability hole.
And yet.
Mary Lou, in this book, is redeemed and painted as sympathetic. The racism isn't handwaved away, though it is softened -- Mary Lou never uses slurs, for example, or says anything overtly prejudiced. But she does think interracial dating and marriages are problematic -- not because the couple can't love each other, but because of what other people think, questions like where they'd live, who they'd be friends with, how they'd raise their children. When called on that racism, she admits that she knows it's wrong, but she'd just be too afraid to be one of the people who tries to change things. And she is forced to confront this head on -- while she's miserable, lonely, and barely managing to stay sober, she runs into a local landscaper, Ibraham, who quickly becomes her close friend and confidant, and later she realizes she's falling in love with him.
Ibraham is very dark-skinned and Saudi Arabian. The first time she meets him, she's uncomfortable with the idea of "an Arab" wandering around in her neighborhood. Through the course of the book, she sees that same reaction in other people and grows increasingly disgusted with it as she confronts her own prejudice. Which isn't to say she lets go of that racism easily or smoothly -- when she realizes someone is about to assassinate the president (and that it was someone who'd had access to her car) she immediately assumes it's Ibraham and his brothers, until she finds out he was the victim of an attack, not a perpetrator.
The book also paints Mary Lou as sympathetic by making it clear why she so desperately wanted to marry Sam. She had a miserable childhood, with an alcoholic mother who neglected her and her older sister, and a string of her mother's abusive boyfriends (one of whom raped her older sister). All Mary Lou wants is security. She envisions marrying a SEAL as a way to get that, and a happily ever after: perfect husband, perfect child, perfect house. She's always told herself those are the things she needs to be happy, and as the book continues, we find out that she is just as miserable as Sam. He's not who she imagined and she never really got to know him, and she has no idea how to make him happy or make him love her.
She does try. She gets sober and attends AA meetings almost every night, because she wants to make sure their daughter has a better mother than she did. She cooks, cleans, and does her best to never complain or say or do anything that would upset Sam, which as far as she knows is anything that involves having a spine. But she has no idea how to be what Sam wants, which is, of course, Alyssa. She knows he's still in love with her -- he talks in his sleep, and he dreams about Alyssa constantly -- and she hates that she can't make this work. She realizes she trapped herself, but has no idea how to escape.
There are a couple of heartbreaking scenes with her. The one that stands out the most to me is when she runs into Kelly Ashton (still not Kelly Paoletti! a running sub-sub-subplot in the last few books) and gets a pity invite to a wives-and-girlfriends party while the SEALs are all deployed. She doesn't fit in at all. A lot of it is class-based -- she doesn't fit in with the well educated, successful women, and she knows it -- and it doesn't help that there's drinking at the party, which she can't partake in. Joan is there, meeting everyone for the first time, and they're filling her in on gossip… until they remember that Mary Lou is there, and that the gossip about her and Sam is that they're miserable, and that Mary Lou got pregnant on purpose. It's awful.
Also heartbreaking, though it's not from her POV, is when her next door neighbor, Donny, has a crisis. Donny is "crazy" -- more on that in a bit -- and Sam has always thought of him as a freak. But Mary Lou is friendly with him, and sometimes helps him out when he's not able to leave his house. Eventually there's a scene where he has a crisis, and she and Sam are there. She's the one who knows him well enough to help, snapping at Sam about what to do and how to react. His first reaction is to wonder if they're having an affair -- based on literally nothing except that they're friends, which, wow, Sam, what a dick -- but having her yell at him is the only time he finds her to be even mildly interesting or worth noticing. So he uses that as a chance to try to finally mention divorce to her, and upon hearing that she immediately shuts back up, because at no point has he ever said that hey, guess what, having opinions and a backbone are good things and he'd rather actually talk to her than have a Stepford wannabe wife.
Actually, "wow, Sam, what a dick," is pretty much his whole thing in this book. He thinks that he once -- literally, once, in their entire marriage -- tried to talk to Mary Lou, and when she didn't immediately respond the way he wanted her to, he decided she was never worth talking to again. He spends as much time out of the house as he can, actively avoiding her -- which means largely avoiding Haley, their daughter. He admits she's been impressive with regards to her sobriety, but he doesn't seem to do anything to help her. He's spent months making it very clear that he doesn't care about her at all, that he finds her embarrassing and awkward, that she's hurting his career, and that he resents her. The best thing he can say about his role in the marriage is that he doesn't cheat on her, even though he wants to and is love with someone else. He's at best a mediocre father. Wow, some hero.
The more sympathetic Mary Lou becomes, the worse Sam comes across. I'm genuinely relieved that the next book wraps up the Sam/Alyssa arch, because instead of the super hot chemistry from the earlier books, this was just Sam being completely intolerable. Seriously, shut up Sam, you douche.
It's no wonder Mary Lou is the one who's being targeted by the stalker. He sees a lonely, desperate, unhappy woman (who also has access to the naval base, and whose car trunk doesn't lock) and tries to get close to her by being a sympathetic ear, and is successful enough to get weapons onto the base to be used in an attack. Luckily, he pushes just a bit too hard, and Mary Lou recognizes he's being creepy and turns to Ibraham instead, and puts together what her car was being used for just in time. She calls in an emergency and runs for it, serves Sam with divorce papers (GOOD), grabs Haley and goes into hiding. (I point all this out only because it's the springboard into the next book, which I didn't know at the time.) Sam doesn't notice that any of this is happening, and dismisses Mary Lou when she tries to tell him. Arrrrgh.
#4: So the series as a whole is not without its problems, but this book has two giant ones that stood out to me and made me cringe.
The first is when Jules and Sam are chatting. I am generally all for the Sam/Jules friendship, but then they start talking about Alyssa, Jules says that Alyssa's career is doing great, and Sam breaks out with, "Yeah, way to go. Sleeping with the boss'll really make those promotions happen." Which Jules follows with a hearty "fuck you" … because he's calling Sam out on his jealousy. Not because Sam is casually suggesting Alyssa is getting promoted for sleeping with her boss. Which is a pretty fucking rotten thing to suggest. Sam then doubles down on it, and Jules responds the same way.
Okay, so Sam, at least, is coming from a place of miserable jealousy and bitterness. Maybe he doesn't want to give Alyssa the benefit of a doubt. But Jules is supposed to be her best friend and partner. They both know Alyssa is a great agent, and neither one seems to have any issue with the idea that she's only getting promoted because what they believe is her relationship with Max. Jules's defense of her never suggests that hey, maybe she deserves promotions because she's talented.
It's. So. Gross. Shut up, both of you.
And then there's this: "Crazy" Donny. Donny -- Mary Lou's neighbor, who is also coincidentally Joan's older brother -- is a shut in with some completely unspecified mental disorder. He's certainly paranoid and anxious, and it manifests in just about every cliche you can imagine. He refuses to leave the house, he believes in aliens, he literally wears tinfoil hats. He gets "crazier" when he's off his meds, which of course he is for most of the book, because he believes someone has been tampering with them to get to him. Bonus cliches: he's a computer genius but can't interact with people.
Most of this is only framed in how tough it is for Joan and the rest of his family. For example, their father couldn't handle him and split after their mother died.
Ugggggggh.
Look, I'm not an expert on mental health. I just know some problematic tropes when I see them, and Donny is just a bunch of those thrown in a bag. What actual, specific illness(es) he has is never specified. He has no interiority of his own, and is pretty much just a plot point, and definitely not a POV character. In fact, spoiler for the next book: he's killed, off page; Sam is a little bit bummed, but his death is far overshadowed by other characters' injuries, and we never hear even a little bit about how Joan feels about it. And of course, he's killed because he could ID the terrorist they were looking for -- had been able to all along -- but no one listened to him. And if that was the point, that would be one thing, but there's no sense in the narrative that hey! maybe you should listen to him! just because he's non-neurotypical doesn't mean he's useless or stupid! ...but no, it's just that Sam figures out that some of his "crazy" rantings actually meant something, but it's too late.
Basically, that's not how mental illness works, and is a pretty problematic, not to mention utterly played out, trope. And presenting disabilities solely through the lens of how tough it is on the disabled person's family is also hella gross.
Anyway, this book baaaarely holds on to its three-star rating. Mike and Joan are fine, and Mary Lou is great, but the "plot" is non-existent, the pacing is bad, and there's some really awful stuff to wade through. It isn't boring, but it isn't very good, either.
BROCKMANN-ISM TALLY
- USES OF THE PHRASE "SOUL-KISS": well, there's a "long, slow, sexy, soul-deep" kiss, but no "soul-kiss"
- COUPLE WHO KNEW EACH OTHER IN HIGH SCHOOL AND/OR SHE'S HIS FRIEND'S SISTER: Nope
- PREGNANCY SCARE HE SECRETLY THINKS IS HOT: Yep -- in the flashbacks, Joan's grandpa is suuuper excited that he may have accidentally gotten her grandmother knocked up (spoiler: he did)
- SEX AT AN INOPPORTUNE TIME AND HE CAN'T PULL OUT BECAUSE REASONS: Nope
- SOMEONE HAS THE FLU/FOOD POISONING/OTHERWISE VOMITS FOR NO REASON: We've got two. Donny, the next-door neighbor, has food poisoning; Sam thinks Alyssa might be dead and vomits from anxiety
- JAY LOPEZ SHOWS UP, EXPLAINS THAT HE'S A MEDIC, AND VANISHES AGAIN: Yep, when Mike is injured in the intro, it is, of course, Lopez who takes care of him (with Ken’s help! hi, Ken!). Then later in the book, Sam calls him for general medical help when he doesn’t know what’s wrong with Donny. (And oh yeah, there's one scene where all the wives and girlfriends gossip about the team, but the only gossip about Jay is that everyone believes he's taken a vow of celibacy. INTERESTING, but sadly nothing will ever come of it. I REALLY WISH JAY GOT A BOOK.)
- JULES: UGH, well, he's in the book -- mostly just that gross scene with Max, and then a couple of brief cameos. Then he is shot, off page, because why would we want to read about that, Brockmann? (Also this is the book where we find out he and Adam have split up - which I note only because I care about Adam way more than is reasonable for a character that minor and terrible. Adam! \o/ )
- SAM AND ALYSSA: Sam has manpain. Alyssa has a cameo. I'm really glad this all gets dealt with in the next book, because they only work as a couple when they're actively playing off each other. All of the moping -- and all of the stuff with Max -- has soured me on them both a bit, and I hope that their happy ending will make me enjoy them again.