Deep Cover, by Sandra Orchard (Love Inspired, 2011)
Ginny Bryson’s time—and salary—go to support her dying mother and her special-needs sister, Lori. When she takes on the public-relations role for her uncle’s new group home project that will house Lori, the last person she expects to meet is Rick Gray, the man who deceived her and broke her heart.
Rick isn’t even going by his own name now. He calls himself Duke Black and he’s the construction foreman at the group home building site.
What she doesn’t know is that Rick’s an undercover cop. He let her walk away before out of fear his enemies would try to reach him through her. Now he’s back in town to bring down her uncle for the murder of a police officer—Rick’s partner—as well as for insurance fraud.
How can he lie to Ginny and keep his cover? But she knows he lied before, and she thinks her uncle’s an upstanding citizen.
Deep Cover is Canadian author Sandra Orchard’s first novel, set in a small town in southern Ontario. Be warned, most chapters end with a hook that has you reading the next page before you know it. The pace is fast, the characters believably conflicted, and the writing strong with plenty of word pictures.
My favourite line: “Rick chewed on the inside of his cheek and Ginny could almost see the little mice racing inside his brain, trying to find a way out of this one.” (p.78)
Deep Cover is the first title in Sandra Orchard’s “Undercover Cops” series. The next book, Shades of Truth, releases in March 2012. Sandra blogs at Conversations About Characters, and you can learn more about her at her website. You might also want to check out my interview with Sandra Orchard.