Review by Booklist Review
Single-parent Kate Swift is dropping off her six-year-old at school when she sees two young men draw weapons. She grabs the first one's carbine and kills both of them ""in a spray of blood and brains."" Kate is a figure we've met before, the trained killer whose dream of a tame life is shattered when murderous skills are required. Her thwarting of another Sandy Hook will, she knows, provoke an inquiry, and her story will come out: she was a CIA assassin who exposed an in-house murder ring. The culprits are coming for her. For the first half of the novel, Rayburn gives just about all the characters their own chapter, making for a slow buildup the story seems to be rebooting every few pages. Halfway through, though, all the pieces are in place, and the tension builds wonderfully, aided by nice descriptive touches ""the burst-fruit glare of late sunset"" and a quirky way of building atmosphere and character through smell: we know a fellow's bad when our noses sense ""something antiseptic beneath his hair grease.""--Don Crinklaw Copyright 2018 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
At the start of this suspenseful tale from Rayburn (the pen name of South African author Roger Smith), Kate Swift, a disgraced CIA agent who's been living under an alias in a tiny Vermont town and hiding from a sinister element from her past, stops two armed young men early in their attempt to commit mass murder at her six-year-old daughter Suzie's elementary school. Knowing that the unavoidable publicity will expose her true identity, Kate flees with Suzie, first to Canada. As they travel the world-Germany, Thailand, and the Andaman Sea-Kate seeks and obtains assistance from two former high-ranking CIA employees: the man who trained and recruited her; and a clever, effective agent who was discredited when, as a consequence of an error he made in commanding the response to a hostage situation, 22 people were killed. As the bad guys close in, Kate fakes her death, and the ensuing intrigues put Kate and Suzie at great peril. A fascinating plot and arresting characters keep the reader thoroughly engrossed. Agent: Alice Martell, Martell Agency. (Sept.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
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