The Harbor – Carla Neggers

Following on my romantic suspense binge I read my first book by Carla Neggers.

Shattered by her father's murder, Zoe West abandoned her plans to become an FBI agent and left her hometown of Goose Harbor, Maine. But a new home and job did nothing to get her life back on track, and now Zoe knows only one thing will -- returning to Goose Harbor and confronting the past.
FBI Special Agent J. B. McGrath is "on vacation" -- the Bureau's version of "Get your act together, or else . . ." Burned-out after working undercover for a year, J.B. agrees he needs a break, and chooses Goose Harbor as a retreat. But he isn't lying low. He believes a killer is still loose in the town -- a killer who isn't happy to see Zoe West return.
Zoe isn't sure she can trust the unpredictable FBI agent -- or their growing attraction to each other. But as the danger mounts, one wrong move could destroy everything she and J.B. care about. Because someone got away with murder and is determined to keep it that way.

I had some trouble getting into it. I didn’t feel the small town atmosphere and I really couldn’t warm up to the characters. JB just arrives but we don’t really know his agenda, Zoe finds him at her house and just invites him to stay over because he is FBI (no one saw his ID by the way). I never felt the attraction between them and although they weren’t particularly disagreeable they also weren’t really interesting.

Also the book lacked in the suspense department. The main characters are supposed to be investigating Patrick West’s murder (Zoe’s father) but I think the action focused more on the break ins happening than gathering clues of the murder. There’s no investigation and maybe because of that I didn’t it at all suspenseful. The secondary characters are less than interesting , for the most part they are all bad guys and had things to hide but nothing more.

A C-