Affairs of M/Men

Dana Stabenow is a good writer. Her characters are very real, the scenes vivid and believable. The problem is, I can't stand the protagonist of this series. She is so self-absorbed and judgemental I just want to scream at times. She's cold and self-righteous and very bossy.

This book was no different. At one point, someone she was hired to guide had just been shot dead and is laying on the ground beneath a tarp, she goes off out of site with her boyfriend to find out what happened and they end up having sex *twice* and talking about their wonderful relationship before they even discuss it. I don't know about you, but bloody corpses do not make me amorous. And yet, later in the book, another couple is condemned for getting off on other people's pain and misery.

This character has never heard two wrongs don't make a right. Why on Earth would you lower yourself to the level of a psychopath and justify your actions because they did something similar? I don't want to spoil the book so I will just say that at one point she does something that is so unfathomably horrific, I almost put the book down and stopped reading. She only stopped the situation after the awfulness had already begun reluctantly admitting to herself it probably was a terrible thing to do.

As far as the mystery, the first dead body doesn't appear until over a third of the way into the book and the mystery is solved another third of the way in with the last part being more of a thriller than anything else. However, the explanation for the situation is weak at best and completely unbelievable.

I've read the whole series up until now, each one making me more and more irritated with the main character. I am not sure I will read any more.