The Cutting Edge by Linda Howard

Brett Rutland was Carter Engineering's top troubleshooter, so it was only logical for him to be sent to the L.A. office to crack a case of embezzlement.

Brett was a hard man--he had to be, in his life of work--so it hit him like a sledgehammer when he fell in love with Tessa Conway. Half of the men in the office had been in love with her for years, but Brett was the first she'd loved in return.

Their love was perfect, too perfect to last. One day Brett found the embezzler, and on that day their world came crashing down.


I dunno if now's the right time for me to review this book 'cause I'm still royally pissed at both main characters.

Take a deep breath. Inhale. Exhale.

Aight. I hate the way Brett Rutland bulldozed his way into Tessa Conway's life as if he was the best thing since sliced bread. Territorial men can make a sexy read. But the jealousy Brett displayed in this story was just absurd. But I have to say that he made up for that when, still believing that Tessa was the guilty party, he was willing to bail her out. Which, of course, he had to since he put her there in the first place.

I perfectly understood why he had Tessa arrested. All the evidence pointed to her so you really can't blame him. The story had to go that way because if it didn't, we really wouldn't know if Tessa was guilty or not because Brett's next suspect was Sammy Wallace, who was a good friend of hers. And if he hadn't had Tessa arrested, I would ultimately decide him a weak character. I liked him for actually doing that and then working on to protect her even though he still believed her to be guilty of the charge.

As for Tessa, I liked her BUT for the fact that she was willing to let the real culprit go scat-free. I never would have done that even if that person didn't cause me a lot of heartache. What she did was amazing (-ly stupid). The guilty party, Hillary, did it for Sammy so that he could work on his new computer creation, and set Tessa up because Hillary was jealous of the friendship between the two close colleagues. And knowing how Sammy felt about Hillary, Tessa was willing to forgive Hillary. But if I were a good friend of Sammy's, I don't think I'd let Hillary near him. He deserved so much better.

But despite the negative comments, I still quite enjoyed the book. It relieved my boredom for a few hours. And on the LH-meter, it 's somewhere in the middle and leaning towards her better books.

Final verdict: 7/10. Good read.