Troy Moore, $0.99, ISBN 978-0463077849
Romantic Suspense, 2018

I’m reading an edition that has a different cover than the one I’m led to believe I am getting, so I can only guess that the author’s people may have updated the cover image on the book detail page but not the file that is available for download after purchase. At any rate, I like the older cover better. It’s grittier and some may even say uglier, but that cover is more representative of the story I end up getting here. Sure, the newer cover will appeal to romance readers more, but it feels like a vapid change somehow.

Now, Troy Moore’s The Emotional Conviction sounds intriguing on paper, but don’t be like me; try not to get too excited upon reading what the story is about.

Our heroine Jeanne Burns is an FBI agent. That’s right, a female agent that doesn’t answer to some higher-ranking romance hero agent, which is a refreshing change for once. She is assigned to ferret out The Saint, the leader of a gang of vicious and frighteningly effective bank robbers. That’s right, she will fall for The Saint, whose real name is Ryan Johnas, after infiltrating the bank robbers. She can infiltrate, but can she survive his infiltration?

Hmm, it just occurred to me. Instead of just changing the cover to appeal more to romance readers, the author could have also changed the title too. Perhaps something like Infiltrating Her Deepest Passions?

However, I’d recommend changing… everything else in order to make this thing work. Just look at this.

The blood that they had found belonged to a very, very famous Mafia Gang member, called Dylan. He was the 2nd robber with the Saint, the one that wasn’t shot dead, and he was easy to catch. He had gotten careless with his cut of the money. Out of the 260 Grand that they had stolen, 100k had gone to him, 120k to the Saint and finally the remaining 40k, unknown. Perhaps it would have gone to the family of the one that was shot, but it was cash. Cash was not traceable, at all. And she had to find it as well. But a strange mission it was.

Back to Dylan, he had been caught before the day had ended. The man had gotten a nice, large car out of nowhere, and it was ridiculous. No one got such a car just out of the wild and that is how he had been caught. He had thrown 50k around to get a car, and a few more dollars to get a registration that very day. The bad thing was, they knew everything and that is how they had gotten him.

He was hush-hush, very hush-hush. He didn’t speak, he didn’t talk and he didn’t want to talk. But then he had broken, when they had got his only sister. They had found out where the sister lived and got her to Boston. She was barely in her teens, perhaps in her mid-teens, and she was all that he had. She lived with their aunt and uncle, and she was sad to see her brother in Jail. In fact, she was so sad, that she had gotten furious and distraught over his stage. She had cried and cried, hoping that maybe one day, he would understand exactly how much he meant to her and raged at him for getting caught like this. If he wanted to get caught, it would have to be of his own hands, and not anyone else, and she had been furious.

So he had cracked, like a canary he had sung.

“We don’t know anything about the Saint.” The man had said, and she was there, watching Hank interrogate him. “No one does. We only know that he operates for 4 months in the Boston Area, before disappearing off the face of the earth. He can go anywhere he wishes, later on considering that he’s got millions stashed up somewhere. The Saint’s treasure, we call it, in circles.”

He had been circling himself, not wanting to reveal anything about the Saint but leave them clues so they could find it. And they understood. This was a common trick that the accused used, to keep them safe, and also not give out information. Eventually, though he did give out what they wanted.

“But…. the Black Saint has weaknesses of his own…. he is calm and kind, not something that one needs in this business, and he never shoots the innocent. Sure, he can be a complete monster when needed, but…. he’s different from the rest, many try to take advantage of that, but they regret it, heavily, when they do. The Saint stays in the south of Boston and usually visits a Pub there. No one knows his face, or what time he visits at, or what does he do, we only know that the pub is somewhere down there and we talk to a man who gets in touch with the Saint via phone. Before the mission, we don’t meet him. On the day of the mission, he’ll come in, attend the debrief, and then the job is carried out, and that is it. After the job is over, he disappears and isn’t seen again. 5 days later, we get a message by a random number giving details as to a permanent fixture as to where we can find them. Till now the total compilation of numbers are 82 and the total cities are over 300, all over the frigging world. Worst is, if anyone uses a number not provided to him, somehow that bastard has made it such that the ones we call are actual numbers of businesses, like Pizza Parlors, Ice-Cream Bars and so on. Dylan was eventually released for cooperating with the FBI but that did not stop him from doing more jobs with Ryan. He knew if he did another bank job or two he would be set for life and can disappear never to see Ryan again. That was his plan before Ryan finds out he was a rat and kill him for talking to the FBI.

It was a dangerously cruel and clever strategy, and Jeanne had to wonder, how the hell had the man set up such things so fast? And how had he gotten contacts outside the country? The numbers that were given were of registered addresses that ran a business, all of them checked, double checked and then triple checked but none of them were worth anything. In fact, the telecom, who had worked overnight, wondered if it was serious or not and if it was, how did he set it up? But what they really wanted, though, was the information the forensics gave them, the report that she was reading as she got to the drop-off point, where her mission would start, and the report that was in her hand as she was reading it.

Name- Ryan Johnas.Age-29

Date of Birth-Unknown, suspected in mid-February 1989.

Nationality-Born Mexican, American Citizenship.

Hometown-San Francisco, California.

Notes- The major description of this man is that he is sharp and has a very analytical mind. He is a computer programmer that is known to be doing various jobs in the programming business and is perhaps the best black-market programmer on the net. His skills are offered to all that ask for money and his latest program that was written is suspected to be able to hack down high-leveled security feeds that we got access on 3 months ago(Read File-CS-BASE55). He has no blood conditions or anything of the sort.

Suspected for- Being the Bank Robber ‘Black Saint’. Not confirmed. Definitely has a connection to the Saint.

This was the Forensic report, along with a lot, a lot of other bullshit details that didn’t matter. Oh no, what mattered was her official mission report.

Mission Report- You are to go and find more information about the man Ryan Johans. He is suspected to be the Black Saint and you are to confirm it. If he is not the Black Saint, you are to find everything you can about the connection of the man with him and possibly find an identity. In the case he is the Black Saint, you are to set up a way for him to get caught red-handed.

Mission Classification-EVI(Extremely-Very Important.)

And so it had begun. Agent Hank had seen to it that she would have been dropped off right outside of the street that had a bar in a seemingly Uber-like vehicle. It would definitely ward off any suspicion that would or could possibly rise up in this entire thing. This was a delicate job, and she had to be delicate as well. In fact, she had gotten enough room and space where she could live in the city, and she didn’t think that it was going to be suspicious. She was going to live in a small apartment close to the pub, a decision that she liked. She needed to be close to the place for a possible go-over, and she was sure she could find a reason to be there every alternate day to every 2 days. She liked cocktails, and there was no pub that didn’t give cocktails.

And the Locals had good things to say about it as well. They said that the food there was beyond par, even good as well, and it was intensive to eat it. She liked it, she liked the small pub that she was going to go to, and she also liked how the mission was going to be like. It was going to be terrific.

So that is why, when she entered the pub the next day afternoon since she got to Boston, she looked at what appeared to be the most disgusting, most idiotic looking man that was bullying the waitresses. Her eyes were fixated onto the man, and her fury rose. Years of male oppression on the female race in the FBI was getting to her, and as much as she loved her job, she didn’t like it when men thought they could tell her what to do, and they could tell her how to behave.

And then the man got up. She was startled, simply put. The man that she didn’t even notice, getting up and out of nowhere, just catching the fist like that. She knew what thug ideology was, all talk, no brawn, and even worse no brains. But even the best of the fighters that weren’t pros would have troubles catching a fist like that at such short notice, especially when moving. He had appeared out of nowhere and caught the fist as if nothing was wrong, and it was really, really surprising, to say the least.

What have I just read? Weird italicization and capitalization of letters, scenes jump from one focus to another like a hyperactive child that gives no hoots to continuity or context, scenes zig and zag rapidly with no sense of pacing or build-up, and the heroine experiencing a gamut of emotions from 0 to over 9,000 like a clockwork bunny gone haywire.

Now imagine the entire story presented in this amateurish manner, and I have a hard time getting past even the formatting of the story. For example, why are some dialogues in italics and others aren’t? There seems to be no rhyme or reason for this, and it’s super distracting.

“I just was feeling lonely. It’s my day off today, and I didn’t want to spend it alone.” Jeanne replied hesitantly. In those words though, he could sense a small truth and his eyebrows raised. “So I was hoping that we could meet up in the evening, and have a small outing of sorts, just the 2 of us? All my friends will be busy with their lives today.”

“Sure, I would never say no. Listen, how about we meet outside of the corner where the pub is at 7 in the evening?” Ryan asked, his eyes glinting. “I got a new car just 3 weeks ago, so I can drive around.”

“That’s good!” The woman was sincerely happy at his approval. “All I have to do is come down from my apartment then, so of course I’ll be there.”

At first I thought only the women’s dialogues are italicized, which probably explains why Jeanne feels so oppressed as a woman in the FBI, but no, her lines get presented in a normal manner too here and there. If there is any pattern behind this, I can’t figure it out, and it’s probably a pattern that is beyond the comprehension of my brain anyway.

Then there is all that scintillating excitement, I just can’t bear it.

Both of them had sat down and was browsing through the menu. Their food was already ordered and neither wanted to drink much tonight.

“So, how did you find out about this place?” Their table was right by the window as well, so they could see the slowly darkening the light, and the streetlights were coming up. The Station was brightly illuminated and they could actually see trains as well.

“Oh, I came here once with a friend,” Ryan said, looking up at Jeanne. “You wouldn’t know him, he’s long since gone, left the city. He was quite a hefty guy though, that’s all that you should know about him.”

“That might have been an experience.” Jeanne Chuckled. Actually, she was wrong about that. “Someone that hefty would have eaten you out of a wallet.”

“Most people think heavy people eat a lot. That’s not true. Between us, we ordered 2 Garlic Bread and a Non-Alcoholic drink each to start. They don’t eat a lot, they just eat heavy.” Ryan said. We actually shared the Garlic Bread. “So yeah, he did have an appetite, but not that big of an appetite. Hell, I’m sure I eat more than he does at times.”

Jeanne’s mouth was open in an ‘o’ form as she looked as if someone had blown her world.

“Wow.” She finally said, blushing in embarrassment at the thought of what she had just said about his friend, whom she hadn’t even met in the first place. “I mean, I can eat much more than that.”

“Hey, what remains is I found this place,” Ryan said proudly. “I saw it’s advertisement in the Newspaper of all things and told my friend about it. We didn’t know that it was this fancy, but still….”

My mind is blown. The sexual is tension is so thick, I can see them tearing the tablecloth off the surface of the table to start humping away in front of a clapping audience.

I don’t know. I’m sure the author is happy to have published something, and indeed, it is always an accomplishment to have written a full and complete story. However, this one has skipped a few major and much-needed steps along the way to publication—proofreading and editing, especially.

The author is trying to give me a story that is different from the formulaic stuff out there, and I can respect and even appreciate that, but come on. If the cover can be changed, then this story could go under an experienced eye for some much-needed polishing too. Sorry, but there’s no nicer way for me to say this: one oogie; back to the drawing board, STAT.