The first thing to give author Michelle Bellon credit for, is knowing how to grab her reader’s attention right away. Her novel, Rogue Alliance, opens in a facility known only as “The Institute”. There, a man is imprisoned. He cannot remember his name, how he got there, or who he was before. He’s named himself Brennan Miles. At the Institute, he is subjected to torturous experiments at the hands of Dr. Shinto (I guess the name Frankenstein was already taken), who has altered his genes to make him a sort of human-vampire hybrid. He’s stronger and faster than any human, but dependent on blood for survival. This blood is given to him via infusions which are periodically withheld to see how he responds. Why would Dr. Shinto do this? As the doctor explains to his guest, Victor Champlain, he did it because he could.
Victor Champlain runs a major drug operation and has hired Dr. Shinto to develop a new street drug. He also has a lot of enemies and is in the market for a good bodyguard. When he sees Dr. Shinto’s project, he thinks Brennan might fit the bill. So he helps Brennan escape the Institute, and in doing so earns Brennan’s loyalty.
Elsewhere, DEA Agent Shyla Ericson has just gotten a promotion. She’s heading up a team of local cops trying to gain enough evidence against Victor Champlain to put him away for good. She’s thrilled- until she learns that Victor has recently relocated to the idyllic Northern California town of Redding. While the small town intimacy, beautiful scenery and slow pace might be lovely for some, for Shyla it’s a place of nightmares. It’s where she spent her hellish childhood and adolescence, where she became both a victim and a pariah in the eyes of the locals, and where she left as soon as she could. Needless to say she’s not happy to be going back even if it is technically a promotion.
As an adult, Shyla has a drinking problem and an inability to allow anyone to get close to her. That can make her hard to work with, but she gets her job done. When the job calls for her to go undercover and be Victor’s new girlfriend, that’s just what she does, hoping to learn as much as possible about his operation. Brennan is ever present and he and Shyla soon become attracted to one another. She is the first person who makes Brennan question his loyalty to Victor.
However, things begin to get troublesome in the last third of the book, when Shyla’s cover is blown, Brennan chooses to protect her in spite of his loyalty to Victor. At this point their relationship takes on some uncomfortable dynamics. For example, while trying to deal with a hitman Brennan hits Shyla, when she gets in the way. The blow was for the purpose of keeping her away for her own safety when she was being reckless, but it still doesn’t quite sit well. It becomes potentially more problematic as the two characters spend more time together and such incidents pile up. The relationship starts to take on some sadomasochistic dynamic. In spite of this, it is usually portrayed as romantic (Brennan does this to protect Shyla) and we’re told that this is a good, healthy relationship for both characters. The author makes it very clear to the reader that Shyla and Brennan are in love and meant to be together. However, some readers might be find this relationship troubling.
These problems are frustrating, because Rogue Alliance is a good story and had the potential to be a much better book. It’s very easy to get caught up in Brennan’s mysterious past and his current condition; which has roots in sci-fi (genetic manipulation) and fantasy (vampires, sort of!) but is made to feel quite plausible. Shyla’s attempts to take down Victor and his operation are also a suspenseful narrative. Few readers will have much problem with the Brennan/Shyla romance either, until it takes on some potentially uncomfortable dynamics. If a reader can get past that, there is a lot to enjoy.
The book ends with several plot lines unresolved, but since Michelle Bellon writes at the beginning of the novel that this is intended as book one in the “Rogue Saga” there’s every reason to expect that these points will eventually be resolved in later installments.