3- 4 Stars The brothel and gambling den made an interesting and erotic setting. Jaded, experienced, and yet somehow vulnerable hero along with a heroine who could behave as a man and who played a wicked hand of cards made for an entertaining read. The theme of the main heroes of the series being nick named after hounds such as the Wolfhound, the Irish Hound etc. along with dog based similes and metaphors through out this book and the next simultaneously irked me and amused me. Somehow dogs - even hounds - just don't do it for me. Whoo... there's QUITE a bit of chemistry in this one. Connor Linsley, Earl of Killingworth, is better known to much of the Ton as the "Irish Wolfhound." (Actually, all his friends have dog nicknames... I really wonder why they went with a bland series title like "Lords of Midnight" instad of sticking with the "Hellhounds" nickname Society has given them.) He and his friends-- fellow veterans of the Napoleonic Wars-- prowl the dark edge of good Society, barely accepted because of their rank but warily avoided by the marriage-minded set because of their dangerous reputations. (Not so, the knowing widows. ;) ) All of them participate in fairly shady dealings. Connor would likely be shunned outright if the high sticklers knew that he dabbled in *trade*-- as owner of a brothel and gaming den, no less. But it's a business, or trapping some unfortunate heiress in a marriage neither of them would want in order to restore the family fortunes-- and he saw enough unhappiness in his parents' marriage to avoid that route like the plague.Lady Alexa, however, cares nothing for his dangerous reputation... all she cares about is seeing his family safe. She has her first run-in with the Wolfhound when she races to London from their country estate to save one of her brothers from himself. But Connor is not all bark and no bite (and I have to say, the running "dog" puns in this could easily have fallen into triteness, but they were so well-done they continued to delight to the end). Intending to teach her a lesson for her brashness, Connor forces a kiss on her as "payment" for his information, and Alexa feels... not quite as outraged as she's supposed to be about the matter. Not that the rakish dog meant anything by it, really. Of course. And she'd never be seeing him again anyway, right?But that, of course, is not the end of it. Alexa's been content in the country, running the family estate, but now her eldest brother's married, and she's becoming restless. She decides to have her Season in London at last, and winds up running into the Wolfhound again. But even as Alexa's attraction to this most unsuitable gentleman is ratcheting higher and higher, Connor's affairs (NOT those affairs, the business ones!) are getting considerably more complicated. Someone seems out to ruin him, and he doesn't know who or why... and the last thing he needs is some innocent miss getting tangled up in the middle of it. (Which, of course, she does.)Connor is admittedly a bit of a cliche-- the dangerous-loner-wounded-rake-with-a-loyal-heart-- but I happen to quite like that cliche, even though I want to bonk him over his idiot head a time or two. Alexa, though, is a fantastic, complex character: brave, daring, intelligent, practical, passionate, insightful, but in many ways still very insecure about herself. The chemistry between her and Connor is just... whooooo. The mystery of Connor's hidden enemy is very well done, also, with just enough clues to keep you guessing, and just enough revealed at the right time to make the reader positively sick with tension. The endgame had me *literally* biting my nails.Definitely looking forward to the next one (which will be Connor's friend Gryff) and even more, the one after that (his other friend, Cameron, whom I REALLY liked in this book).
