Review by Booklist Review
Lee Coburn is lethal. A trained killer suspected of murdering seven men in a trucking company warehouse in coastal Louisiana, he is the object of an area-wide manhunt when he feigns injury to get into the home of widow Honor Gillette and her four-year-old, Emily. The Gillette house isn't just a refuge for Coburn. He's after something valuable left by Honor's late husband, Eddie, a cop who died in an apparent accident two years ago. As the terrorized Honor fears for Emily's safety and expects to be raped or murdered, it becomes clear that things aren't what they seem. Everything revolves around the Bookkeeper, shadowy head of a scheme for illegally trafficking guns, drugs, and girls, who brooks no deviation from orders given. Though it's fairly obvious early on that Honor is drawn to Coburn's laser blue eyes, Brown keeps the plot twisting and turning, the body count rising, and the action accelerating to a satisfying climax. Brown knows how to write romantic suspense and once again has produced a satisfying page-turner.--Leber, Michele Copyright 2010 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
In Brown's latest romantic thriller, beautiful young widow Honor Gillette and her four-year-old daughter, Emily, wind up on the run through coastal Louisiana with a suspected mass murderer named Lee Coburn. Given the genre, it should come as no surprise that the rugged, self-reliant Coburn is no homicidal maniac and that he and Honor will eventually fall in love. Everything else is up for grabs, since the cops, nearly all of Honor's former friends, and maybe even the FBI are in the employ of a vicious drug lord and white slaver known only as the Bookkeeper. The villains are ruthless, the action perilous and plentiful, and Victor Slezak's narration wrings every drop of suspense from Brown's twisting and turning plot. Slezak also provides a full range of Southern accents: Honor's aristocratic, angry bully of a father-in-law, the redneck local law enforcement louts, and a sweetly sexy woman of means. Slezak even adds timidity and self-doubt to his portrayal of an FBI agent struggling with an impossible investigation, a passive-aggressive wife, and a permanently comatose child. A Grand Central hardcover. (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
In this potboiler, undercover FBI agent Lee Coburn is framed for a brutal multiple murder, which he witnessed and escaped. Lee pursues his original investigation while on the run, trying to identify the local kingpin behind the transportation of illegal drugs. His probe collides with the quiet lives of a young widow and her daughter, who are scooped up into his plight. Unfortunately, the plot is quick, but contrived; the characters are memorable but cartoonish; the reading by actor Victor Slezak is adequate but uninspired. Libraries should buy only as demand warrants. ["Fast paced and full of surprises, this taut thriller features a large cast of superbly drawn characters and the perfect amounts of realistic dialog and descriptive prose," read the more positive starred review of the New York Times best-selling Grand Central hc, LJ 7/11; the Grand Central pb will publish this month.-Ed.]-Kristen L. Smith, Loras Coll. Lib., Dubuque, IA (c) Copyright 2012. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
An FBI agent, deep undercover, is the prime suspect in a mass murder and must uncover the corrupt forces behind the killings to clear his name.When 4-year-old Emily tells her mother, Honor, that there's a strange man in their backyard in Tambour, a small Louisiana bayou town, Honor is skeptical.But when she goes to check, the man, Coburn, accosts her.Holding her at gunpoint, Coburn ransacks her home, looking for something he won't divulgebut it involves her late husband Eddie, a Tambour police officer killed in a suspicious car accident.Meanwhile, Tambour police, deputy sheriffs and twin brothers Doral and Fred, who were Eddie's best friends, are searching for Coburn, a warehouse employee who allegedly shot his employer and six others and is now on the run.When Stan, Eddie's father, grows suspicious, he directs the posse to Honor's remote house.Finding nothing on Eddie, Coburn finally leaves, only to double back in time to shoot Fred, who has just arrived to check on Honor.Fred was ordered to kill Honor, Coburn claims, because the twins (and possibly Eddie before them) are in the employ of a sinister figure known only as the Bookkeeper who "facilitates" trans-border trafficking in humans, drugs and weapons.Now it's unsafe for Honor and Emily to stay putDoral will hunt her down.Still unwilling to believe that her husband, a decorated cop, was implicated in such depravity, Honor nevertheless flees with Coburn, Emily in tow.As they hide out on a deserted shrimp boat, Coburn bucks his Washington boss's directive that he come in from the cold, and Honor fights her attraction to him (without success, naturally).Subplots involving a street thug who is the Bookkeeper's chief enforcer, Honor's brassy girlfriend Tori and her serial marriages, and an honest but ineffectual FBI officer and his wife, whose lives revolve around their severely disabled son, add some interest to a story line which is otherwise pat and predictable.Standard Brown fare.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
