Harlequin, $5.99, ISBN 0-373-83469-1
Romantic Suspense, 2001

You know, when Lori Foster isn’t merely regurgitating one cliché after another, she can actually write a decent, enjoyable love story with sizzling sexual tension and all. Caught in the Act isn’t actually free from clichés – it is a bodyguard/undercover-loves-me story after all. But it’s enjoyable nonetheless. No internal hemorrhage from this reader, I’m happy to report.

Mick Dawson, whom you may or may not remember as a secondary brat character in Beguiled, is now grown-up and ready to impregnate any Silhouette Desire and Harlequin Temptation damsel in distress. But he has one damsel in his sight: heroine Delilah Piper (what are her parents thinking?!) who walks past his favorite cop hangout eatery. Must be those jugs bouncing in her shirt, I guess, although Mick swears that Del is not top-heavy. When a guy says that a sexy woman is not top-heavy, he’s talking about a minimum 36D, I bet.

Anyway, one day Mick and Del are caught in a robbery, and Del ends up having people getting all suspicious about her. This is Mick’s chance to stick himself close to Del, day and night, heh heh heh.

Sounds awfully tired, doesn’t it, that plot? This author, however, is a master when it comes to obsessive heroes, and Mick is this close to being sociopathic sexy. Yum. Del isn’t too irritating or braincell-free either, although she has to be a damsel in distress. Caught in the Act is sexy, fun, and filled with hot tension. I don’t care that Mick and Del do a really stupid thing towards the end in the name of conflict. This one caught me deep alright and it just wouldn’t let go, darn it.