Midnight Exposure

Midnight Exposure is the first book in Melinda Leigh’s Midnight series, the romantic suspense quartet that ran alongside her better known She Can series in the early years of her career. The book introduces investigator Reed Kimball and the small town setting of Huntsville, Maine, where the rest of the series will play out. Jayne Sullivan is an artist who has come to Maine to escape from a stalker she cannot prove is following her. Reed is the local police chief in the small Maine town she has retreated to, and his life gets considerably more complicated when Jayne walks into it bringing trouble that no small town cop is really equipped to handle.

The novel works through the standard romantic suspense beats with practiced confidence. Jayne and Reed circle each other warily through the early chapters as he tries to figure out whether her fears are paranoia or whether something is actually wrong. As evidence accumulates that her stalker is real and dangerous, the romance and the suspense develop in parallel. Leigh handles the balance well, with neither plot line overwhelming the other and the emotional beats landing because she takes her characters’ interior lives seriously.

Melinda Leigh’s strength as a romantic suspense writer is the consistent quality of her plotting. Her female leads are usually capable women in difficult situations rather than damsels in distress. Her male leads are competent and respectful in ways that do not undercut the actual threat the antagonist poses. And her resolutions tend to feel earned because the obstacles she sets up are genuine ones that have to be addressed rather than waved away.

For longtime Melinda Leigh readers, Midnight Exposure is the foundation of one of her early series. For new readers, the Midnight quartet is a comfortable entry point into her work and runs to four books that can be read in order. Readers who enjoy Karen Rose, Allison Brennan, or the romantic suspense end of Catherine Coulter’s catalogue will find familiar territory here.