In Dangerous Season, Keir and Audra both have pasts. So do most of the people in this town. When a string of fires begins, Keir must catch the arsonist with evidence while many residents are very ready to cast blame on the easiest suspect. Does someone's past make him always guilty? How does a Christian take seriously the idea of redemption while also hunting down the culprit, especially when all clues keep leading to the easiest suspect? Audra is afraid to trust Keir with her secrets. Can the two of them learn to trust God and each other, especially with the whole town watching their every move, before the escalating arson becomes dangerous?

Dangerous Season is the first book in the Harbor Intrigue series. As inspirational romantic suspense, Harbor Intrigue can be read as a thoroughly enjoyable light suspense read set within a Christian community, but read with a more focused attention, this book would make a great book club or church book club choice. Dangerous Season sets up the three book series well, providing the reader with the background of the resort harbor town and its residents. This first book also sets up the characterization and even the style with which Lyn Cote provides Scriptural meditations here and in the following two books. Lyn Cote builds suspense by writing of the emotional lives and experiences of her characters and all the intersections of relationships past and present. In terms of the inspirational tone, Dangerous Season, creates a scene where past reputations haunt and distort one's vision. For Christians characters who believe in forgiveness, facing the past can be a challenge to faith and a call to expand one's vision and faith. A nice narrative technique for suspense and inspiration!

Lyn Cote makes a bold move to wrestle with the theme of anger, often a problematic issue for people of faith. Is anger a sin? Can Christians be angry and not sin (see her Ephesians quote at the beginning)? How? Some anger is righteous anger, and other anger is self-righteous and perhaps the key is knowing a difference. Lyn Cote glosses the first Ephesians inscription with another, "Speak the truth in love" and perhaps that is the key --- love --- and that gets us back to romance element developed by Lyn Cote in this book.

Publisher: Steeple Hill Love Inspired Suspense (April 2007)
Series: Harbor Intrigue