Hero at Large

Hero at Large is Janet Evanovich's 1987 contemporary romance, published under her Steffie Hall pen name during her early Bantam Loveswept years. Chris Aaronson is a Chicago insurance investigator who has been assigned to babysit Ken Callahan, a witness who refuses to stay in his safe house. The plot from there is genre standard with one twist: the romance is between Chris and Ken's brother Matt, not between Chris and Ken himself.

What makes the pre-Plum Evanovich work as well as it does is the comic timing already on the page. The Aaronson banter is sharp, the insurance procedural detail is sourced rather than invented, and the Chicago setting carries enough weight to keep the romance from feeling abstract. The third-act crisis lands a beat early but the resolution earns its own pacing. For 246 pages, this is one of the more efficient comic romances of its decade.

Recommended for Evanovich completists who want the pre-Plum catalog, for fans of late-1980s comic romance, and for readers looking for books like Hero at Large in the insurance-investigator-meets-witness subgenre. Four stars and one of the underread Steffie Hall titles worth tracking down.