Review: Stop Me by Brenda Novak

Posted July 3, 2008 by Casee in Reviews | 0 Comments

Genres: Romantic Suspense

Stop Me

Who was the real killer?

Romain Fornier lost his reason for living when his daughter was kidnapped and murdered. He used a cop’s gun to mete out his own justice and spent the next few years in prison. Once he was freed, he returned to his Cajun roots in small—town Louisiana. But now he learns that he might have killed the wrong man.

Jasmine Stratford, a psychological profiler, is convinced his daughter’s killer is still alive—and that she and Romain have something in common. She believes the same man kidnapped her sister, Kimberly, sixteen years ago.

What happens next?

Jasmine is determined to track him down when she receives an anonymous package, postmarked New Orleans—the bracelet she gave Kimberly for her eighth birthday. She approaches Romain because she knows he can help her… if he chooses.

But searching for the man who irrevocably changed both their lives means they have to rise to a killer’s challenge:

Stop me.

After the awesomeness that was Trust Me, I had pretty high expectations for this book. Sadly, I was a bit disappointed.

For sixteen years Jasmine Stratford has tried to find out what happened to her younger sister, Kimberly. Though she was only a child herself, Jasmine has always felt responsible for Kimberly’s disappearance and the subsequent break up of her family. When she receives a package postmarked from New Orleans that contains the bracelet Kimberly was wearing when she disappeared, Jasmine immediately heads to Louisiana. Following up on the only lead she has had in years, she starts researching unsolved child abduction/murder cases that have happened in the area surrounding New Orleans. Her research brings her to the door of Romain Fornier.

Romain Fornier only goes through the motions of living. Two years after losing his wife to cancer, Romain’s daughter Adele was kidnapped and brutally murdered. When her killer was released on a technicality, Romain shot him down on the courthouse steps. After being released from prison, Romain has little to live for. When Jasmine shows up on his doorstep, he tries to turn her away. Jasmine is persistent though and soon has Romain wondering if he killed the wrong man. Now he’s not only having to deal w/ the possibility that he killed an innocent man, but also guilt for the feelings that Jasmine makes him feel.

Jasmine and Romain start working together to uncover what really happened to Kimberly and Adele and how they could be connected. Is Kimberly’s abductor somehow related to Adele’s murderer? With the abductor sending Jasmine clues, she knowingly puts herself on the in the path of a possible killer.

So overall, I enjoyed the book even though I didn’t like it as much as Trust Me. I just really wasn’t feeling it between Jasmine and Romain. Romain was obviously a tortured hero, losing his wife and his daughter within two years. His reluctance to get involved w/ Jasmine was palpable, yet his desire for her overrode that. I can’t quite put my finger on what I didn’t like about Romain. I liked Jasmine. The suspense was good, if not a tad predictable. Whenever I can figure out who the villain is, it’s predictable. Even thought it wasn’t as good as the first, it was still good.

3.75 out of 5.

This book is available from Mira. You can buy it here or here in e-format.

Other books in the series:

Book Cover Book Cover Book Cover

Read my review of Trust Me here.


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