Dana Sloan is Denver’s mayor. As the story opens, she is planning to announce her intention to seek her party’s nomination for governor, despite the series of threatening letters she’s been receiving. While she does have police protection, no one on the force wants “bird-dog duty” until Bill Madigan is assigned as her bodyguard. He’s recovering from an injury sustained on his last case and is on light duty.

The story follows the election through the primaries and the general election. Naturally, Dana and Bill become involved, causing problems for her politically and him professionally.

While they identify her stalker early on, the person and intent behind the stalker is not revealed until the end of the story.

Overall the story is well-paced and entertaining, earning it 4 stars despite the fact that I was not connected to the characters and didn’t really enjoy the romantic aspects of the book. The beginning of their relationship showed potential reminiscent of the Kevin Costner/Whitney Houston movie (although this novel predates that movie by a few years), but the build-up to their coming-together lacked tension, and their continued relationship during the story was sometimes annoying (Darling this, darling that). But do read it and disagree. ( )