Shane Crowe, adventurer and former Buddhist monk, is also in Tibet to obtain the silk. He observes the danger confronting Dani and chooses to save her rather than the silk. Together they flee Lhasa and Tibet while pursued by Chinese soldiers.

Shane's employer, Risk Limited, a global security company, has been hired by Tibetan Buddhist monks to retrieve the sacred silk that has been stolen from them. Dani's expertise in antique textiles is enlisted to identify and rescue the silk. As Dani's involvement with Risk Limited and its operatives deepens, her life becomes endangered even while her love and desire for Shane grow.

Katya Pilenkova and Ilya Kasatonin, Russian expatriates, have founded the Harmony, a consortium of international criminal masterminds headquartered in Aruba. Katya controls the archcriminals by providing them with glimpses of her luscious body, with whores to slake their resulting lusts, and with gifts that both fulfill their deepest desires and bind them to the Harmony. She recognizes the silk's value to recruit another member. Katya is determined to control the world's criminal enterprises; only icy vodka and Ilya satisfy her twisted appetites.

Ilya, captured and mutilated in Afghanistan, is a cold-hearted killer. He both desires and despises Katya and threatens her with death at each encounter. His incapacity at lovemaking is more a matter of the heart than of the body. His lethal talents are directed to obtaining the silk for Katya and the Harmony.

This is a romance? Zebra is marketing it as such.

In Shadow and Silk, Ann Maxwell has written more of a suspense thriller in the Robert Ludlum mode than a romance. The secondary characters, Katya, Ilya, and others, are only slightly less important than Dani and Shane. As the operations of Risk Limited and the Harmony occupy a significant role in the book, Dani and Shane's romance becomes overshadowed by international intrigue.

This book is plot-driven rather than character-driven. Unfortunately, the plot is choppy and thrown together. As the scene shifts from one exotic location to another around the world, the plot lurches and falters. The excess of characters and intrigues interferes with the flow of the story, and the eventual fate of Katya and Ilya seems contrived.

In a romance, a reader expects to meet attracted and attractive characters and come to know their hearts and motivations. In Shadow and Silk the hero and heroine are mature, seasoned adults with education and talent. It ought to be easy to become involved with them and their growing relationship, but in fact they're pretty much cast into the title's Shadow. The secondary characters' motivations are more fully developed. Apparently Shane and Dani are too normal to be interesting; the author(s) seems to prefer writing about the twisted passions of Katya and Ilya. It may make a more intriguing story, but it doesn't make a romance.

As a romance, this book takes a wrong turn. The hero (who has taken a three-year vow of celibacy) and the heroine get a lot of looking, lusting, and sniffing but practically no togetherness. The villain and villainess, however, get sex. Raw sex. Wild and kinky sex. Sadistic and masochistic sex. Apparently the message is that virtue is still its own reward.

If you're looking for suspense and intrigue, you might be better off with Robert Ludlum. If you're looking for romance, you might want to look elsewhere, too.

--Lesley Dunlap