The Unsung Hero (Troubleshooters, #1) (Wheeler Softcover)

by Suzanne Brockmann

[Angie]

Honestly, The Unsung Hero didn't really sound like my thing, but I decided to give it a try anyway. It might surprise me. Sadly, I was bored through most of it, but there was a subromance which I really enjoyed and wished had been its own story. When it starts, Tom is struggling with the implications of his head injury. He's on 30 days of leave and is desperate to get better so he can stay a SEAL. However, he sees a terrorist that was presumed dead nearly a decade ago. Or, he thinks he sees him. He's not entirely sure and that terrifies him. But what terrifies him more is if he's right and does nothing.

The Unsung Hero focuses more on everything but the romance, which was a bummer. Tom and Kelly knew each other as kids and teens, she had a crush on him, he liked her but thought she was too young. He joined the Navy and that was that. Now he's staying at her father's house while he's on leave, and she's also back while she cares for her dying father. They're in the same place at the same time, and rekindle that flame. But they don't really spend all that much time together, which I wanted to see. I did like how Kelly was the aggressor, but I didn't really feel anything between them. We're just told that they're still in love after all of these years.

Then there's all of the scenes between Kelly's father, Charles, and his best friend of 60 years, Joe. I started skipping all of that because it was soooo boring and for me, it didn't add anything to the story. It felt completely separate and just extra pages. They spend most of the time arguing about something that happened during WWII, and how Joe is going to tell that story to a reporter at the upcoming veterans' celebration. There are a lot of flashbacks to what happened to them and I didn't bother reading them. I just didn't care.

What I did really like was the romance between geeky David and Tom's niece, Mallory. I would have loooooved this as a New Adult Romance! David is working on a graphic novel and needs a female model to help him draw his main character more realistically. Mallory doesn't have the best reputation because of her mother, so she's not exactly thrilled to have this loser approach her. However, David is so sweet and sincere, and all of their scenes together are just so freaking cute! I also thought it was clever how their story ended up tying into Tom's.

As for the Suspense part of The Unsung Hero, I never really got into that until the very end. I can understand Tom thinking he saw this terrorist that he had studied for months, and having to do something about it in case people get hurt. However, I found it weird how suddenly he goes from just seeing him, to knowing that he's building a bomb and is going to set it off at that previously mentioned celebration. That was too much of a stretch for me. I did like how it all wrapped up though. It's sad, and it was kind of a weak attempt to connect Charles' and Joe's thread, but I liked it.

In the end, The Unsung Hero just wasn't my thing. The romance between Tom and Kelly was almost an afterthought and it's more of a military thriller that spans across two time periods. I'm not into war fiction, so I simply didn't care about a third of the book. However, David and Mallory almost made up for it.

Read more of my reviews at Pinkindle Reads & Reviews.