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Two couples are featured in Stripped to Serve, Alan and Callie Grady, and Renee Atkins and Sam Hooper. Alan, Renee and Sam are all police officers in Vice, trying to track down a homicidal killer, Raul Cortez. Raul almost killed Renee once, and now he’s strangling red-headed prostitutes. At each scene, he leaves something belonging to Renee. He finally realizes that no matter how many other women he kills, only Renee’s death will satisfy his rage.
Alan and Callie are separated, and Callie has been living with her sister, Donna, whose taste in men runs to dark, dangerous and sleazy. Callie was arrested while driving with her car’s trunk full of cocaine. Alan can’t believe Callie has anything to do with drugs, and wants to do whatever he can to help her. He still loves her dearly, and doesn’t want the separation. As he focuses on getting her a lawyer, he has to also deal with the Cortez case. And unfortunately, because Callie was driving his car, IAD may be knocking on his door anytime.
Sam and Renee have become close – very close since the attack by Cortez that almost ended both of their lives. Both enjoy domination games, and trade off playing top. When Sam wakes up to find a note from Renee saying she’s gone back to work undercover, he’s terrified and furious. He wants to marry her, and he wants her to stop being a cop. Fortunately he has enough insight to know he’ll lose her if he tries to make that happen.
Although the story was engaging, it felt like both a recap of part one, and a preview of part three. The ending is a cliff hanger, and the plot, character development and feel like the middle of a story rather than having a beginning, middle and end. I have not read the first, and don’t plan to read the third in the series.
Reviewed by Nancy Riggins-Hume
for The Road to Romance
November 18, 2004
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