A review by bunrab
Brazen, Book 13 by Angilram, Kelley Armstrong

2.0

This is a slim book, barely more than a short story. And it's a pricey short story at that - they are charging as much as a full size hardcover, and the excuse for it is apparently the illustrations. All three of them. They're in black and white with touches of red, and they're not really action scenes, and they don't add a single thing to the story - they don't illustrate any details that weren't described in words or give any clues to other things that are going on.

SPOILER ALERT:
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Spoiler

Nothing happens. Well, several redshirts brought in for the occasion die, but in terms of moving the story arc of this whole series along? Nothing happens. We are supposed to learn that Nick can actually take care of himself and others, but in fact, no such thing is proved. At the end, the killer is still at large, Nick still hasn't got the female protagonist in bed, and she still hasn't got him in bed, and Nick didn't really accomplish any mission alone. The scene they have that's supposed to convince us that he's really capable and could have gotten the killer, doesn't convince me in the slightest. In short, if you skip this volume entirely, you won't have missed a damn thing. A few characters physically relocate during this book, and the female protagonist may show up in later books, but there's not enough there to make it necessary to read this.

You can go on to the next book without ever reading this, and you won't have lost track of the series.