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    Review of DOUBLE VISION by Vicki Hinze (see her website)

    Silhouette Bombshell #45, June 2005

    As part of the top-secret counter-terrorism group S.A.S.S., Captain Kate Kane is on the tracks of GRID, a powerful criminal organization dedicated to the destruction of the U.S. Led by a German who hates the U.S., GRID has been able to create doubles of dozens of key employees in the government--and holds the originals captive. Kate follows an underwater trail somewhere in the middle east and discovers a secret GRID base. She's convinced that GRID is using the base to smuggle weapons, but how does that evil organization manage its moves considering that the U.S. Navy is watching.

    Serving as backup, Major Nathan Forester commands a crack group of special forces troops. He doesn't approve of hot-dogging, and is determinedly loyal to his long-dead wife, but when he and Kate collide, sparks fly and the attraction is powerful. Still, both have their jobs to do, hunting down evil terrorists. Can a romance between these two survive? Especially as Kate is a determined loner, unwilling to invite the kind of rejection she suffered at the hands of her parents.

    There's no question of moral ambiguity in author Vicki Hinze's story. The Americans are the goodguys and everyone else isn't. Moslems don't value their lives, Sadam really did hide weapons of mass destruction that are just waiting to be uncovered, and a nation like Iran needs to buy grenade launchers and similar weapons from a criminal mastermind.

    A jingoistic plot premise isn't always a fatal flaw (and it might even help sell the book), and Hinze is a capable writer. Several fundamental flaws, however, pulled me out of the story. First, if evil German terrorist Thomas Kunz is capable of creating DNA-perfect adult clones, he should be so rich he could buy America--and certainly woudn't have to deal with smuggling petty ordinance into coutries perfectly capable of producing their own. Second, every time I read the name Nathan Forester, I couldn't help thinking of General Nathan Forest, confederate general, accused mass murderer, and one of the founders of the Ku Klux Klan. It's hard to believe that Hinze made this choice accidentally. Third, the hotel scene in the middle of the book screamed 'intermission.' Maybe we needed a romantic interlude, but couldn't it have been more organic to the story? Fourth, the whole kidnapping of Forester's troop and their proposed execution could serve no purpose for the supposed evil genius, Kunz. Fifth, it's one thing to survive being stabbed in the gut, it's something else to go walking around after being stabbed as if nothing happened.

    For me, there was just a little too much distracting me from the story.

    One Star

    Reviewed 7/09/06

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