Review by Booklist Review
Before dying in pursuit of the merciless terrorist Max Huber, CIA chief Carl Venable entrusts the safety of his estranged daughter, Rachel, to operative Jude Brandon, who must rescue her from Huber's henchmen after a raid on her medical clinic in Guyana. Safely back in the States, Rachel is apprised of her father's death but defies his wishes when she insists on working with Venable's protégé, Catherine Ling, to avenge his murder and prevent Huber's proposed terrorist attack on San Francisco. Working within and without the spy agency's infrastructure and coping with its power-hungry leader, Claire Warren, Rachel confronts her painful past as a teenage captive of the Taliban and relies on the lessons learned from her savior, Hu Chang, to survive this latest challenge. Although the high-stakes race to thwart Huber provides the framework for Johansen's latest thriller, the sexual cat-and-mouse dynamic between Jude and Rachel supplies an equally alluring narrative. Johansen's loyal and never-before readers alike will want more of this newly introduced and provocative pair.--Carol Haggas Copyright 2018 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
In bestseller Johansen's pulse-pounding 23rd Eve Duncan novel (after Shattered Mirror), former Army Ranger Jude Brandon honors the dying wish of CIA operative Carl Venable, who's been mortally wounded while on a mission in Montana, to protect his daughter, Rachel Venable, from Max Huber, the leader of the Red Star terrorist organization. Huber believes that Rachel, who runs a medical clinic in the jungles of Guyana, is responsible for the death of his father, the powerhouse behind Red Star, and wants revenge. Jude and his team manage to extract Rachel, whom Huber has plagued in the past, from her jungle clinic before Huber can capture her. Jude delivers Rachel to a safe house in San Francisco, where she soon starts working with an informant who claims to have information about a plan Huber has to destroy the city. The mutual attraction between Jude and Rachel generates plenty of romantic heat. Highly complex characters and a stunning conclusion make this a winner. Series fans won't mind that Eve receives only passing mention. Agent: Andrea Cirillo, Jane Rotrosen Agency. (Oct.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Kirkus Book Review
A dying CIA counterterrorist leaves his daughter a challenging legacy: carry on his work by exacting vengeance on his killerwhich incidentally prevents him from wreaking further havoc on a global scale.Like Homer, Johansen (Shattered Mirror, 2018, etc.) begins in medias res with the death of Carl Venable, head of the CIA task force on terrorism, who's been shot by one of Max Huber's snipers during a rare, but vital, sally into the field. As he's dying, Carl tells his sidekick, Jude Brandon, to get in touch with his daughter, Dr. Rachel Venable, and pass the torch to her. One complication: Rachel's currently working with One World Medical in the Guyana wilderness. Another: She's had nothing to do with her father since he negotiated all too slowly for her release from the Taliban fighters who killed her mother and brother when she was 15. Since Huber also has daddy issuesConrad Huber was a much more fearsome terrorist, as his adviser Adolf Kraus is constantly tempted to remind the mini-me he now advisesand since Rachel was responsible for Conrad's fatal poisoning, the stage is set for any number of epic-scale set pieces involving terrorist threats and counterthreats whose motivation is ultimately personal. Drawing inspiration from her mentor, Hu Chang, and a wide range of emotions from her rocky relationship with Brandon, whose father was another of Max Huber's casualties, Rachel shows that she's just as tough and savvy and ruthless as her father ever was but also fully in touch with a female side that's sensitive to a fault.Superheroes battle supervillains in a thriller heavy on action and even heavier on dialogue in which the principals explain to each other exactly what's happening and exactly how they feel about it. Fans who haven't already been exhausted by Johansen's fondness for superlatives will eat it up. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
