A Bit of a Moan: Part 2

Ahhhh, confession!  It's good for the soul, you know.  Lightens the load, makes the world seem a better place, etc, etc.

Yesterday I confessed my ennui with the sex shower scene.  It was only a minor moan really but today's gripe is one which REALLY annoys me when it crops up in books:

The hero who, rather than reporting a serious crime to the police, takes it upon himself to sort everything out himself in a show of quite astounding vigilantism.

Now, I'm not talking about that mainstay of mystery novels - the amateur sleuth - who when seeing a crime committed, or discovering a body, may work alongside or adjacent to the police, but rather one who never reports the crime and then tries to solve it himself.  So, in may ways it would be like the amateur sleuth discovering a body, hiding it, and then trying to solve the crime.  Preposterous, yes?  But a similar thing  happens with other crimes, other than murder, and, to be quite honest it gets my goat.

For example, I read a book not so long ago where the hero had his home broken into and was attacked by masked men.  Did he call the police, like any sensible person?  No he didn't.  Instead, he and the other hero decided to form a plan to get their own revenge, thus (rather predictably) putting themselves into life-threatening danger.  Grrrrrrrrrrr!!!!  Stupid men!!!!!!

Now, I'm willing to concede that on occasion the hero will have a darned good reason for not reporting a crime, such as living in a very remote town and having less than cordial relations with the local Boss Hogg sheriff; or if they themselves are criminals and don't want to attract undue attention from the fuzz (in which case how have they managed to be the hero of a romance novel anyway?), or if you're a mythological creature such as a vampire or were, and would rather not blow your cover.  On the whole though, when this sort of thing happens in a romance novel, there's some baffling 'higher purpose' excuse which is, at best, flimsy, and at worst, downright idiotic.

Look at it this way: You wouldn't perform surgery on someone unless you were a qualified surgeon, would you?  You wouldn't attempt to put out a raging fire without first calling the fire service, would you?  So why is it in some romance novels the heroes think they are better trained and equipped than the police force?

Whenever this crops up it makes me sooooo cross and is sometimes one of the reasons why I DNF a book.  Not calling the police when your home is ransacked, you are attacked, or some stalker is leaving you death threats is akin to TSTL, in my opinion.

So do you agree with me today, or is this something which never bothers you at all?