Enemy Mind (Silhouette Family Secrets) [Mass Market Paperback]

Zach Ingram tried to tell them that his name wasn't Jake, but they didn't believe him. Soon he realized that if they believed him, they would no longer have use for him. Asking him questions that he has no answers, and keeping him drugged, Zach is more than ready for the angel that arrives to help him. At first he thought she was one of them, but he soon realizes that she has been decieved too.

Together, Maisy and Zach come together in an isolated ranch house that holds many secrets. Maisy breaks her number one rule, getting involved with a patient. For there is something about Zach that touches her in places that she has never been touched, even by her husband. Zach only knows that he has to get them out alive. He may only be a professor at a college, but he can be a hero too!

The kidnappers told psychiatrist and hypnotist Dr. Maisy Dalton that Jake was brainwashed after being in a cult for over a decade. When Maisy sees Zach for the first time he tries to tell her that he isn't Jake. After seeing how his "family" treats him, she finally believes him and they make their escape. When the kidnappers find them, a battle ensues and only one group will walk away from it alive.

Maggie Shayne always writes a riveting work of romantic suspense but she out does even herself in her latest work ENEMY MIND. The two protagonists are attracted to each other from their first meeting but because of some painful events in her past, she is afraid to act on her feelings. Zach, who always thought he was a wimp compared to Jake, shows that he is a true hero as he defends the woman he loves against those who seek to destroy her. ENEMY MIND is the first installment in what looks to be a great series.

Harriet Klausner

My big problem with the book was the whole 'suspension of belief' type thing. Plus it had some serious John Doe undertones and since it was published this year, I have to think that the author had to have been watching John Doe. Why did I feel this way? For starters, you have a guy who gets kidnapped by two old geezers and the typical large dumb guy. Well, the head of this ring is the old lady (hmmm, the first John Doe link). They take this guy off to a distant ranch out in the desert, then they invite a Psychiatrist to 'deprogram' him. They are trying to make him remember his past, but they've got the wrong guy. They really wanted his adopted brother who looks just like him, though they don't know this yet.

So far, this could just seem like an amateurish kidnapping attempt, but they keep alluding to something bigger. Something more organized. The problem with this is the fact that they leave the psychiatrist alone at the remote ranch with the big dumb guy. For one, if they were really a major organization they'd have their own deprogrammer and wouldn't lure someone unknown out to do the job. Second, they wouldn't leave the idiot whom they think will talk too much ALONE for days with the intelligent psychiatrist and the kidnap victim.

So many things just don't add up. And then at the end they have a scene where the plane chases them down and they shoot it down with hand guns. The cops arrive and they can't even find the old geezers that they tied up or the big dumb guy that they shot in the head... After I think all this through I begin to wonder why I read the entire book in one sitting. (I also wonder how an unconscious woman can ride a horse bareback for hours, but hey it's fiction - right?)

This book was the setup novel for the 'Family Secrets' series about the extraordinary five and a group called Medusa. So far, it has a lot of John Doe undertones and a lot of very stupid activities by this Medusa group. How organized can they be?

I've heard a lot of good things about Maggie Shayne's Vampire series - I just hope that it's more 'believable' than this story.