Working my way through the currently-nineteen-book Milan Jacovich series by Les Roberts, whom I have had the pleasure of hearing speak at a writers' group in the past.

Warning: Spoilers May Follow. Read at Your Own Discretion.

*****

I can understand a man who's been drinking might fall for a story such as the one Paduska told in his Irish-alter-ego. I can even understand Torrence falling for the story. But I'm not quite sure I buy the story that the drunken encounter eventually led to Paduska staying at an aunt's house--an aunt who is a judge--unless she's a drinker too as Milan suspected. Even with that, I don't understand how a savvy lawyer like Cathleen would fall for him, but believe he wanted to spend nights at her mother's house instead of staying with her.

So I had to suspend a bit of disbelief to read through this entry into the Milan Jacovich series. The story itself is okay. I enjoyed reading about the Northeast Ohio area. I'm not familiar enough with the history of Cleveland to know if there really was both an Irish mob-like influence such as what is suggested in this plot. It's hard for me to imagine the Irish and Italian families sharing turf, but . . . it may have happened.

Family seems to be the underlying theme to the story--and what one does for family. Hartigan wants to protect her husband's and her daughter's reputations as well as her own. Marks wants to protect his son. McCardle wants to protect his niece. D'Alessandro regards both Victor and Milan as sons of a sort.

Milan seems to have burned the bridge with Cathleen--but we will see if she shows up in future books in the series either as a romantic interest or in another way. Milan also seems to have burned bridges with Victor and D'Alessandro but, hopefully, that will resolve itself in some way and we will see them as characters in future novels in the series.

I am to the point where I hope Roberts ends the series with Milan finding a woman who he might have a future with--or at least someone to make his non-work life less lonely.

The version I read includes a 1 page letter from Roberts at the end. The letter introduces the next book in the series. I was surprised to read that Roberts had planned to end the series with this book--but Milan had other ideas, I guess since the next story in the series jumped into Roberts's mind. ( )