Fair Game
This is why Lanyon is one of my favorite authors ever. Fair Game has everything I look for in a novel: good standalone plot, good mystery that I didn't solve until just before the MC did, good sexual tension, good sex, good suspense, several viable suspects, a reasonable reason for the MC to get involved in a case, good suspense and action, individual characters, strong women characters, and lots of danger and near-death and oh-my-God-I-was-so-scared-I'd-lose yous to make me ecstatic. It was so good that I forgive the main character for saying he didn't like Seattle. He at least loved the Pacific Northwest; he just didn't love the big city. (Yes, I'm making excuses...) I just wish one of his main characters were a racial minority. Lanyon's not very good about that. Nitpicks:
1.I have been to five different universities in my unsuccessful quest to not enter the real world, and I have never been to one that would notice, let alone care, if an undergraduate disappeared. A specific teacher might, but not the president of the university. (mild spoiler) And two kids disappearing who had nothing in common at all, would not be a huge coincidence. College kids run off on benders and fall in bed with someone and blow off their classes and do some drugs and lose track of time and take off for something really fun at the last minute, etc., etc., all the time. The story takes place at "Puget Sound University" in Tacoma. It's obvious that it's supposed to be the University of Puget Sound which is also in Tacoma. That is a big enough school that no one would notice or care.
2. Seattle University is nowhere near any wharf or harbor, and any sit down restaurants on the piers are extremely pricey, so no wharf-side restaurant would be a popular meeting place for SU students who would have to drive there and pay enormous fees for parking, in addition to the food costs. Creative license, cure, but huge geographical inconsistencies bug me.
Favorite quotes:
"Christ. Only in academia did people talk such bullshit and expect to be taken seriously." (By someone who was a professor.)
"Mrachek, Leslie hovered in his office doorway." (He remembers students by how they appear on the roll sheet which is what made me laugh.)
"All cynics are disappointed idealists. The more stars in the eyes, the harder the fall."
"'I'll see you at five.'
'Wear something sexy.'
'Asshole.'
'That will certainly work.'"
Because of the lack of positive minorities, 4.5 stars, rounded up because everything else was so great.
Happy ending? Yes, strong HFN.