The Convenient Escape by Robert Downs
To Veronica Baird, escaping from an underground dungeon and racing through the woods, is anything but convenient, even as her captor in rubber mask attire proves rather persistent in his continued pursuit. Despite her apparent independence, she considers a partnership, albeit reluctantly, with a former classmate who may still have feelings for her. Pete Nealey still has flashbacks to Iraq and, with the bottle as his eternal companion, tends to fall off of barstools at the most inopportune moments or pass out face down in the tavern parking lot. But what he may lack in cheerfulness, he more than makes up for with his steadfast loyalty to the cause, even when he ends up handcuffed to an air conditioner in a shoddy motel. But unless Veronica can learn to trust Pete for more than just intermittent intervals, the slipshod relationship, and her freedom, won’t last…
The book wasn't bad but it wasn't great either. It was a typical crime thriller but what irritated me was the behavior of one of the main characters. Veronica Baird is an accountant who discovered some funny business at her firm and now she's wanted dead so their shenanigans don't get out. Honestly it seemed a bit too much like a recycled version of Grisham's The Firm. Even though Baird is being hunted and has no detailed background in evasion / defense tactics she somehow keeps up this bitchy attitude that she can still control everything and get back at the bad guys. Even the other main character wonders at one point how someone with her background can have this delusional idea she's capable of fighting back, maybe even killing. You REALLY want to hate this character only a few chapters in because she just never gets likable and I found myself hoping the bad guys would off her. After being kidnapped and escaping instead of going to the police like any sane person would do she decides to go on the run with an ex-boyfriend she happened to run into as she was literally running away from her captor. And the ex-boyfriend had been in the military. Talk about lucky. There's just a lot more that doesn't seem anywhere in the realm of plausibility or common sense. Like when one of the bad guys sends in his secretary, who has so far been described in extreme detail through many sexually charged scenes as only being good for blow jobs and other plastic surgery enhanced jobs, to act as an assassin to take out the military ex-boyfriend who has found himself trying to keep the irritating accountant alive. You can guess how that went. At least it helped me pass the time and avoid talking to my mother-in-law so some good did come out of it.
*synopsis and pic from amazon.com