The Waterfall is a fun book. It’s well-written, the characters are believable and fairly well fleshed-out, the plot is interesting. But when I closed the book, I just couldn’t muster up much enthusiasm for it. After some thought, I think I’ve figured out my problem with the story: as a suspense story it’s okay, but as a romance it’s not entirely convincing.

Lucy Swift is a widow trying to build a life for herself and her two adolescent children in Vermont. It’s not very easy, since her father-in-law is Jack Swift, a prominent senator. When somebody begins to harass Lucy — subtly at first, although the events begin to escalate scarily — she is reluctant to notify the police because that would mean the end of her quiet, low-profile life. Then she remembers the promise she made to her dead husband: is she ever finds herself in trouble, she should go to Sebastian Redwing, his best friend and a security agent par excellence, for help.

However, there are two problems. One, Sebastian Redwing has decided to renounce violence after a particularly traumatic case the previous year. Now retired from Redwing Associates, he’s moldering in a shack in Wyoming, and happy that way. Two, Sebastian is in love with Lucy and has been since her wedding day, which makes him even more reluctant to leave his comfortable isolation. But he decides he has to help her, and he finds himself fighting the memories of his childhood in Vermont, his attraction to Lucy, and a stalker who seems to become bolder every day.

The characters are quite engaging; however, they’re also somewhat bland. Lucy is a woman struggling to pull her life together after her husband’s unexpected death, and a typical 90s superwoman: she owns and runs her own adventure travel agency, is single-handedly bringing up her children, and finds time to tend to her rambling garden. Sebastian is a romance type we know and love: the hard-bitten, cynical warrior who acts more than he speaks. The children are precocious but thankfully not too precious. The villains are suitably nasty and dotty. Neggers does a good job of breaking or tweaking stereotypes, though, so although the characters will seem extremely familiar, they are quite well-developed in their own right.

The book moves along at a good clip. Once you pick it up, you probably won’t want to put it down for a while because it’s such fast-paced read. However, this brisk pace, while creating an absorbing read, creates problems with lack of detail. Some are relatively minor. For example, after finding a dead bat on her bed, Lucy understandably has a fit. But after Sebastian disposes of the body, she gets right back into bed. Without changing the covers or the quilt. Is it just me, or would it have been more convincing for her to have stripped the bed thoroughly and run everything through a super-wash cycle or two?

Some of the other omitted details are not quite so easily overlooked. We are told constantly that Sebastian has been in love with Lucy since her wedding day, but how and why are left a mystery. Some flashback scenes would have added a lot more character and color to the story. Similarly, Lucy falling in love with Sebastian is just not convincing. They don’t really interact very much, Sebastian being the strong, silent type and Lucy being only marginally less so. Even the physical chemistry between the two isn’t very credible.

The Waterfall is a fairly agreeable read. While the suspense elements seem to overshadow the romance aspect, the writing is simple, unpretentious and enjoyable, and it has some great dialogue and zingy one-liners. If you’re looking for a fast-paced story that’s not too sensual, this is the book for you.