Have you ever read a book with only one character? Not one main character but one character from first page to last? There are probably some titles out there. For me, plot without at least two ‘you and me against the world’ characters to connect with and care about isn’t a very interesting story.

 

Eddie Emerson and Kelly Gillespie, The UnMatchables private investigator partners in business and in life, are the butter and sugar in cookies. The must have main ingredients for the characters I add to flavour the romantic suspense series plot.

Eddie and Kelly saved each other. He bailed her out at the brink of spending addiction bankruptcy. She sponsored and tough-talked him through Alcoholics Anonymous. In “The UnMatchables Case #1: Danger Noted”, the best friends since college declared love too long denied on the night they nearly died together. Private investigator partners at the end of their first slam dunk case that could have gone horribly wrong. They’d survived. Consummated and celebrated in the home they now shared. The posh penthouse on North Lake Shore Drive owned by Eddie’s family, the old money ultra-affluent Emersons of Fairfield County, Connecticut. He’d proposed and she’d accepted the ring he’d bought but couldn’t give her until he got and stayed sober.

 

In “Case #2: Danger Revealed” character recipe ingredients Chicago PD detectives Jim Ross and Paul Callaway return from Case #1. This second in the series story is spiced by Kelly’s saucy friend Cecily Vosh, a former cop who patrols the courtroom as a trial science attorney; The UnMatchables clients Tori Deane and Canadian diplomat Lucas Dominguez; Rayen Vasquez, a victim of human trafficking desperately searching for a way out and antagonists with dual identities.

 

Like the chocolate chip cookies Kelly bakes for Eddie, one character isn’t enough.

 

Kelly’s Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ingredients:
1/2 cup unsalted butter (softened)
1 cup brown sugar
3 tablespoons granulated sugar
1 egg
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 3/4 cups flour
1 1/2 teaspoon crushed instant coffee
12 ounces semi-sweet chocolate chips

Cream the butter with the sugars until fluffy. Beat in the egg and vanilla extract. Combine the dry ingredients and beat into the butter mixture. Stir in the chocolate chips. Drop by large spoonfuls onto a greased cookie sheet. Bake at 375 degrees for 8 to 10 minutes; 10 to 12 minutes if you prefer a crisper cookie.