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Hard Evidence
Hard Evidence
Hard Evidence
Audiobook11 hours

Hard Evidence

Written by Pamela Clare

Narrated by Kaleo Griffith

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

4/5

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About this audiobook

After the murder of a teenage girl, a mysterious man in a black leather jacket was seen lurking near the crime scene. Investigative reporter Tessa Novak has him in her sights as the culprit.That man was Julian Darcangelo, an undercover FBI agent working with the Denver police. He's closing in on the trail of a human trafficker and killer. Tessa's accusations could blow his cover, and he wants her off the investigation.But just as Tessa has made Julian a target of interest, she is now a target of the killer. And as they are forced to trust each other, their physical attraction escalates as intensely as the threat from a ruthless murderer who wants to see both of them dead . . .
LanguageEnglish
Release dateNov 19, 2012
ISBN9781452680583
Hard Evidence

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Reviews for Hard Evidence

Rating: 4.010948846715329 out of 5 stars
4/5

137 ratings17 reviews

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  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    This will be the last book I ever read by Pamela Clare. Her books are just too corny and the characters are ridiculous.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This is the 3rd novel in this series I read and as with the others I wanted to start at the beginning again right after finishing it. If you're looking for a romantic suspense novel that has it all, give this series a try.
    One of the interesting things about this novel is the difficult decision investigative journalists must sometimes face whether or not to feed the public certain facts, in this case from a murder investigation. Sometimes I thought Tessa's actions weren't very smart, but I did understand why she felt she had to do it. It was her job and cover-ups do happen.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Hard Evidence
    5 Stars

    Synopsis:
    After witnessing the murder of a teenage-girl, investigative reporter Tessa Novak believes Julian Darcangelo is responsible for the crime. However, Julian is, in fact, an undercover FBI agent on the trail of a human trafficker and vicious killer. Now, Tessa's reports have brought them closer both to each other and to an unimaginable evil that threatens both their lives.

    Review:
    The first book in the series, Extreme Exposure, was good but nothing truly special. This book is a huge improvement. The plot is fast paced and suspenseful, the romance is intense and the characters are well-developed.

    The human trafficking story is exceptional. Pamela Clare has definitely done her research and it shows in the details. The villain is diabolical and there are some truly frightening moments at the climax of the book that had me holding my breath. I did manage to guess the identity of the FBI mole but this sub-plot is cleverly done with appropriate red-herrings.

    The characterization is excellent - Tessa's soft and vulnerable exterior belies her fierce intelligence and determination. She is completely fearless when it comes to her job and I appreciated her dedication even though she does some crazy things, like visiting gang bangers on their turf. It may seem stupid but makes sense in the life of an investigative journalist accustomed to taking risks for the story. Julian is the perfect combination - sexy, courageous and protective with a tad of tortured hero thrown in. Their chemistry is explosive and the development of their hate to love relationship is particularly captivating.

    Overall, this is an incredible story with amazing characters. Hopefully the rest of the series will be just as good.
  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    I liked the first book in this series, but I couldn't finish this one because of the excessive amount of stupid. I rolled my eyes a little when I saw that the hero was named Darcangelo, because it's so obvious, but apparently not obvious enough for the main character. Tessa is supposed to be a hot shot reporter, but when another character refers to Darcangelo as Dark Angel and she totally doesn't get it. I could have ignored that if it had been an isolated case of brain fade, but it wasn't even close to that. Tessa is TSTL. As if that wasn't bad enough, the story never provides a logical explanation of Darcangelo's status. Supposedly he's a former FBI agent working undercover w/the Denver Police. At one point he thinks how great it is that he's not a Fed or a cop & can therefore run his own investigation. The next minute he's arresting a suspect. How does that work? Once he has the suspect in custody Darcangelo deliberately keeps the man's whereabouts a secret. In other words he violates the guy's right to an attorney. The sort of cop whose sole purpose in life is putting the guy's scum boss in jail isn't going to break the law in a way that results in all the evidence he gathers being unusable in court unless he's a total idiot. One TSTL character is more than enough. Two is a deal breaker.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Another pretty solid book with interesting plot. My problem with this series is the writing that sometimes gets to be a little too mushy and some of the sex scenes become a little forced.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I'm probably one of a very few who didn't really enjoy this book. The heroine was TSTL and some of the stuff she did, i.e, going to hang in the hood with some gang members, was just kind of ridiculous. I don't know, just didn't thrill me.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    OH MY GOD.....I fricking loved this book! Scrap that...I loved this book but I loved Julian more :)

    Tess Novak is an investigative reporter with a problem. Raised in poverty, she has dragged herself up from the gutter to become a well paid success story. Then she witnesses the shooting of a teenage girl in a gas station and risks her career, and her life, to bring the killer to justice. Unfortunately when the killer is a notorious Russia gangster, who also happens to be a sex-trafficer and drug dealer, her life expectancy suddenly reaches an all time low. Julian Darcangelo is the special agent that has been chasing after said Russian baddie for years. With a personal vendetta to act out, Julian is willing to stretch the limits of the law to bring the man, who killed several members of his team, to justice. Unfortunately one major obstacle in his way is Tess and her investigation. When her life becomes threatened, Julian finds that he can't trust anyone else to keep her safe!

    WOW WOW WOW WOW WOW!!! Tess was great, she really was! She was a little naive and idealistic about how the truth would save all, but this perfectly balanced the cynicism that came from the beautiful literary creation that was Julian. Julian started off the book attracted to Tess but, from her physical description, I don't think there would be a man alive that wouldn't be!! He tries so hard to not to be; he feels that he can't lose focus of the case and that he is not a good enough man for the likes of her. They finally give into the physical attraction between them and the sex scenes are un-fricking-believable!! Seriously....hot!! It takes a while for Julian to admit that Tess is more than just a roll in the hay, that she means more than that. There is a scene where Julian lets Tess see all his fears and his baggage, truly letting her see the real him. First I cried a little (seriously....his daddy was a DICK) and then, when she proved that she wanted him warts and all, I got a little fluttery about the most emotional sex scene I have read in a while.

    Seriously....way up there as one of my favourite books!!
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I liked the book. But I felt like Tessa's character was too close to Kara's. The reporter who doesn't know when to quit. Getting into trouble and having to be saved.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I had to bite my knuckles every time Julian Darcangelo made an appearance.

    Who knew that feeding an addiction would lead Tessa on a path of experiencing exquisite pleasure and tangling with the Russian mafia? When Tessa stops at a gas station to get a fix of her caffeine addiction, a 16 year old girl stumbles in mumbling in Spanish that she needs help and that "they're going to kill her". Before anyone can react, the young girl is gunned down in a drive-by right in front of Tessa. While Tessa is giving her statement to a police officer, she spies a man across the street watching her. Has she just caught a glimpse of the killer?

    Julian Darcangelo is an FBI agent who is deep undercover trying to get to the man responsible for killing two fellow agents, wounding Julian's ex-girlfriend, and for human sex trafficking. He is close to catching key players when he realizes the danger that Tessa is in for being a witness and the last person the young girl had spoken to.

    The combustible chemistry and sexual tension between the two is off the charts. The banter between them is really .... cute. He becomes even more swoon-worthy when he protects her and saves her life a few times. Naturally, being an investigative reporter means that she not only finds trouble, but they barely get to really talk because who knows what is on or off the record where reporters are concerned.

    I thought the trust building came at a believable pace, and Ms Clare does an incredible job of describing the plight of young girls forced into prostitution, the incredibly cruel people behind the atrocities and the brave people who make it their mission to put an end to the horrors.

    Five stars for the incredible story, a timid turned heroic heroine and of course, the delectable Julian. Just sayin' :)
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    re-read April 2011Another re-read. Follows the story of I-Team reporter Tessa Novak and Julian Darcangelo, undercover FBI liaison and Russian mafia sex trafficking ring. Once again, the suspense doesn't overwhelm the romance and they don't do the nasty while being shot at or anything silly like that. The scenes where Tessa is in jail for 24 hours on a felony charge were chilling - they are, I believe, based on the author's real life experience as a journalist. Humiliating and scary. Holds up well on a re-read. Julian is a very sexy hero. Yum.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I loved this book and this series. Good story line, great suspense, very steamy. I love the HEA and that the author spends some time writing about that HEA.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Possibly the best romantic suspense novel I have read.Pamela Clare manages to create suspense stories so grounded in reality they are at the same time haunting and beautiful. Julian and Tessa are an amazing couple – believable, flawed, and yet perfect for each other. The author herself is admitted she fell so in love with her hero she had to give him lots of scenes in her next book – and it’s not hard to see why! And Tessa is a wonderful mix of femininity and strength – a perfect and realistic heroine.Clare’s strength is in creating good stories. The romance is at the forefront, but there is a whole lot more to Hard Evidence than just a couple hanging around and talking about their relationship. Julian is an FBI agent, and has been trying to bring down a sex trafficking ring. Investigative reporter Tessa becomes caught up in it. This feels like a story that could really be happening in our society, and the book is all the better for it.The twists and turns the story takes are so original, and so involving. This is a book you won’t ever want to put down.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I picked up this one because I loved the previous book, Extreme Exposure. It was another investigative reporting story this time involving the friend of the heroine from EE and was not quite as good but still enjoyable. Tessa witnesses a murder of a young girl. She is so traumatized by her experience that she writes a detailed eye witness account in the newspaper where she works as a reporter which puts her life in danger. She decides to find the girl's killer and in the course of her investigation meets Julian, an undercover FBI agent who has been working on the case which involves human trafficking. Tessa does some very unwise things (maybe even TSTL) and her life is in danger (of course) and Julian must protect her. Some of it was rather unrealistic but again Clare's writing makes up for it. Good suspense, hot sex, and fast action. (Grade: B-)
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    After the murder of a teenage girl, a mysterious man in a black leather jacket was seen lurking near the crime scene. Investigative reporter Tessa Novak has him in her sights as the culprit…That man was Julian Darcangelo—an undercover FBI agent working with the Denver police. He’s closing in on the trail of a human trafficker and killer. Tessa’s accusations could blow his cover—and he wants her off the investigation.But just as Tessa has made Julian a target of interest, she is now a target—of the killer. And as they are forced to trust each other, their physical attraction escalates as intensely as the threat from a ruthless murderer who wants to see both of them dead…My ReviewOkay, before I launch into the problems I had with Ms. Tessa Novak let me just say I did enjoy this book. It was fast paced and kept me turning the pages. Julian was a great tortured anti-hero and I will be picking up the other books in this series however...I hope to God none of the other heroines are going to be as dumb as Tessa Novak. How this girl is not dead or horribly maimed still remains a mystery to me. Why Julian would even waste his time trying to protect her is also beyond me. Just to clarify Tessa witnessed the murder in gas station and promptly went to work and wrote up a front page article detailing every single detail of the crime. I don't work with the police on a daily basis like say... an investigative reporter would and even I understand why police withhold certain details from the public to help them catch the killer. Tessa however, can't really grasp the concept of police catching the bad guys and reporters reporting. I'm supposed to believe that Tessa is only out to help get these guys off the streets, protect all the other girls like the one who was murdered and it's not all about getting her big headlines but honestly, her headlines are driving the bad guys further underground and potentially exposing the identity of an undercover agent who is thisclose to catching them. How is that helping Tessa??? Please explain it to me.On top of all that this girl is dumb. Let me just list the bajillion stupid things she's done.1. Writing a first person account of an unsolved murder for a major newspaper in Denver announcing to the bad guys that she Tessa Novak witnessed everything.2. Assuming the murder was gang related and after writing in the paper that she Tessa Novak witnessed the murder and is going to track down the killers herself to see that they are arrested goes waltzing into gang territory and starts asking around to talk to the head of the local Crips chapter.3. After starting a media frenzy to get the cops to start cracking down on gang activity Tessa slips her protective cover and goes back into gang territory to finish her interview with the Crips.4. Even after she finds out that the killers are worse than gang member, has a man break into her apartment and molest her while she is in the bathtub, a cop gets shot by said man after trying to break into her apartment for a second time she still insists on doing things on her own and evading the protective custody the police have on her. Oh and perhaps I should mention her best friend ( a fellow reporter) was almost killed for trying to take a story too far in a previous book.There are just too many issues with Tessa for me to write about them all. It's enough to say that she was a complete airhead for the majority of the book and by the time reality actually hit her in the face and she started exercising common sense it was too little too late.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Well. Yet another author for my 'must buy' list thanks to all my buds on Goodreads.com. Pamela Clare blew me away with this tightly plotted romantic suspense novel that will get your pulse rate moving in more ways than one.Investigative reporter Tessa has always fought for the underdog. And when she sees a young teen blown away literally before her eyes, she decides to do what she does best...investigate. Before long she's hip deep in danger and lust with undercover agent Julian. But when Julian needs her to keep a lid on what she's discovered, will she understand or be willing to compromise her journalistic integrity? Loved, loved, loved this book. As soon as I finished it, I quickly dug out the first one from the 'to be read' mountains and devoured that one as well. Now it looks like I'll have to order the third one since neither my local B&N or Booksamillion has it in stock. If you like romantic suspense that's believable and smoking hot...you really must read Pamela Clare.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    On the surface, Hard Evidence sounds like a pretty typical romantic suspense with a journalist heroine and an FBI agent hero. Tessa Novak witnesses a murder--a teenage girl is gunned down right in front of her after begging for help--and decides to write the story, even though she's worried that the killer will target her as a result.She's not stupid, though, and she cooperates with the police, describing for them the man in the black leather jacket she saw watching her after the shooting. Who happens to be not the killer but Julian Darcangelo, who's been tracking a human trafficker, and this murder is just the latest of the villain's crimes.A few years ago, I burned out on romantic suspense, and the expectations I had while reading this book explain why: I expected Tessa to refuse to share any information with the police. She didn't refuse. I expected Julian to conceal his identity and then for Tessa to go ballistic when she found out. That didn't happen either. Mostly, I expected Tessa to be TSTL, and to spout "the public's right to know" platitudes with every other breath and to expect the 1st amendment to work like a bullet-proof shield. None of that happened. Instead, Tessa was brave, and determined, and logical.I liked watching the case unfold from two different angles. Julian had the advantage, in that he knew who the criminal was, but he was also hampered because there was a leak, either in the FBI or the police department, and he had to solve that as well. Tessa initially started the case thinking it was gang-related, and she followed leads until she came to the same conclusions.The ending was both satisfying and had a nice twist.Hard Evidence is part of a series that begam with Extreme Exposure and continued with the novella "Heaven Can't Wait" in Catch of the Day. I'll be watching for more books in this series, starting with getting Unlawful Contact out of my TBR pile.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    So what is so appealing about this one? Number one would have to be the hero Julian Darcangelo. Wow - is he a great hero! A former FBI agent, he's now working on a contract basis trying to track down and find a sociopath Russian mobster who deals in human trafficking. Julian had screwed up a few years earlier while on the trail of the same villain and has been suffering guilt because of it ever since. He tries to remain in the background but is spotted by the heroine Tessa Novak. Having come from a fractured and dysfunctional background, he's still pretty rough around the edges, and deep inside he longs for a normal family but doesn't think he will ever get one. He makes one really really good hero.And I also really liked Tessa Novak as the heroine. She too has come from a background of poverty and dysfunction and really made something of herself as a top investigative reporter. She was standing right next to the young girl who was gunned down and feels a great deal of anguish that she wasn't able to do more. As a result she tries even harder to find out what really happened. She did one thing near the end that some readers might consider a TSTL kind of action, but I didn't see it that way. It was a dumb thing to do yes, but even as Tessa did it, she knew that it was and admitted it. To me a TSTL heroine is one who keeps making the same kind of stupid move over and over without even realizing what an idiot she is. For me, Ms. Clare has made me feel the devastation Tessa feels, the need to do something, anything, even if it involves doing something that might not be the brightest of ideas.And the chemistry between Julian and Tessa! Wowzers is it hot! A recent review gave this a warm rating and I have to admit, that had me scratching my head as this has some very well written smokin' hot sex scenes.And while I often buy books based on covers alone, in this case I would have bought the book because it was written by Pamela Clare, but even if it wasn't, I would have bought it on the cover alone. This cover is HAWT!It's a rare author who can write books I love in such opposite genres but Pamela Clare is definitely one of them!