REVIEW: Nameless by Debra Webb

I’ve dis­cov­ered a new author to add to my “authors to watch out for” list and her name is Debra Webb. Sus­pense must be her first, mid­dle and last name because Name­less, her Feb 2008 release by St. Martin’s Paper­backs, kept me on the edge of my seat.

For­mer FBI agent, Ryan McBride is bit­ter at hav­ing been let go from his job at Quan­tico. He was apart of the Child Abduc­tion Unit when his last case went bad. Need­less to say, the case cre­ated a nasty, pub­lic scan­dal for him and the Bureau so the two parted ways. Unem­ployed and resent­ful, he spends most of his free time imbib­ing in vice and drown­ing out his sor­rows in the Florida Keys.

Mean­while, in Birm­ing­ham, Alabama, a lit­tle girl is kid­napped and the vil­lain will only give McBride the clues to her where­abouts. It would turn out to be the first of many chal­lenges issued to McBride. So, the Birm­ing­ham field office are forced to bring back their for­mer, dis­graced agent to help solve the case. McBride doesn’t make it easy on them when they approach him about the job. He gives them plenty of atti­tude and har­bors a lot of resent­ment but he is will­ing to put all of that aside to con­cen­trate on the case.

Being set on the shelf for 3 years has made McBride rusty and his fear of fail­ure gives him panic attacks. How­ever, he pulls it together, one case at a time, to save the inno­cent bystanders who are unwill­ing pawns in a madman’s jour­ney for revenge. The pres­sure and stress of the job had McBride light­ing up so much, he really should have been nick­named The Marl­boro man. His part­ner, Vivian Grace, is a rookie with a dis­turb­ing past. Grace’s past is fleshed out a bit and given the hor­rific things that was done to her, only inten­si­fied the shock­ing and cli­matic end­ing of this story.

The sus­pense part of the story was more of the focus, so there really wasn’t much time to fully develop the romance. There’s a cou­ple of explicit sex scenes and some nice chem­istry. McBride was by far my favorite char­ac­ter. He is all male and some read­ers may find him a bit rough around the edges. How­ever, he can be tamed by the right woman. What I found attrac­tive about him was that he was prac­ti­cal, had some com­mon sense and he lived up to the leg­end that he was within the Bureau. He’s also a bit of a mav­er­ick who doesn’t mind bend­ing the rules if it saves lives.

As for Grace, she’s a rookie look­ing for career advance­ment. She had a hor­rific event hap­pen to her in col­lege that changed her life for­ever. She’s skit­tish and has prob­lems with her sex­u­al­ity, most of which stems from her past. McBride in turn helps her try to over­come her hang-ups and help build up her self-confidence. The book gets high marks from me in that the cou­ple never uttered the word “love” to each other. The case only lasted a week but some roman­tic sus­pense nov­els will have the cou­ple think­ing about “love” and “forever“after 3 days. Let me put to you like this: actions spoke louder than any words that were spo­ken in here. I liked how the author han­dled their relationship.

Nam­less by Debra Webb gets a B+ from me. One must sus­pend dis­be­lief to fully enjoy sto­ries such as these. There’s some mar­ginal char­ac­ter growth within the story. McBride is some­one who didn’t know how to han­dle fail­ure but Grace is able to make him reflect and respond dif­fer­ently to his faults and weak­nesses. The sec­ondary char­ac­ters also added depth to the story. Addi­tion­ally, the body count is low and the vio­lence is more or less off cam­era but there is a flash­back or two of sex­ual abuse, so be pre­pared. The story is told in third per­son with the villain’s pov given in brief chap­ters. I loved the sus­pense in here. Lastly, if there were any flaws in this story, I didn’t notice them. I was too busy turn­ing the pages to even care. A B+.

This book can be pur­chased at your favorite book­store but no ebook ver­sion was found.

For Fur­ther Reading

• Wednesday’s Child, Gayle Wil­son [Guest Review]
• “Hard to Hold,” Stephanie Tyler
• Christa Faust, “Money Shot”
• Revis­it­ing Vic­to­ria Holt, Queen of Gothic Romance
• REVIEW: Shadow Lover by Anne Stuart
• REVIEW: No Sur­ren­der (Devlin Group Series No.3) by Shan­non Stacey
• REVIEW: The Redeemer (Harry Hole No.4) by Jo Nesbø and Trans­lated by Don Bartlett
• Reader’s Cor­ner: There’s a Fine Line Between Roman­tic Sus­pense and Mystery
• DNF REVIEW: A Soldier’s Home­com­ing by Rachel Lee
• REVIEW: ‘Joker’ Story by Brian Azzarello and Art by Lee Bermejo

Tagged as: Alabama, Birmingham, Debra Webb, FBI agents, redemption, Revenge, Romantic suspense