Review by Booklist Review
Attorney Kira Mandarin returns home to Virginia to find out who murdered her parents 14 years earlier when Kira was 12. She gathers evidence and sends it anonymously to FBI agent Dillon Savich, hoping this will lead to the apprehension of the man responsible. In a separate investigation, Lacey Sherlock, Dillon's wife and fellow agent, is assigned to a protection detail for Emma Hunt, a young pianist who appears to be the target of kidnappers. Both cases turn out to be rather more complicated than they at first seemed. The twenty-sixth installment of Coulter's FBI series delivers just what the author's fans have come to expect: a story that doesn't go where we might expect it to; a supporting cast of new and exciting characters; and two familiar faces, Savich and Sherlock, who have come to feel like old friends. Typically, Coulter's FBI novels are mixtures of light and dark; this one, perhaps because both the revenge-seeking attorney and the young pianist are still recovering from childhood tragedies, feels darker than most. A solid series entry.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Early in Coulter's propulsive 26th FBI thriller (after 2021's Vortex), prosecutor Kirra Mandarian, who moved to Australia 14 years earlier after her parents were murdered, returns home to Porte Franklyn, Va. In seeking to find out who killed her parents, Kirra uncovers evidence of criminal activity among Porte Franklyn's elite and passes it on to FBI agent Dillon Savich. Meanwhile, Savich's wife and fellow FBI agent, Lacey Sherlock, takes time off from the FBI to help her friends Molly and Ramsey Hunt. Sherlock agrees to watch over the Hunts' 12-year-old daughter, Emma, a piano prodigy, as she performs at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. At an earlier concert, Emma, the granddaughter of a mob boss, narrowly escaped being abducted while performing in her home city of San Francisco. When Sherlock and Molly find themselves in danger, Sherlock must employ her keenly honed survival skills to outwit their assailants. Scintillating suspense surrounds the dual mysteries as the stakes rise for Savich and Sherlock and those they're seeking to protect. Series fans will be riveted from the very first page. Agent: Robert Gottlieb, Trident Media Group. (Aug.)
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Review by Library Journal Review
Past and present danger looms in this latest featuring FBI agents Dillon Savich and Lacey Sherlock. Virginia Commonwealth attorney Kirra Mandarian turns to Savich when she finds herself dangerously out of her depth while seeking to bring down the man she holds responsible for her parents' death 14 years earlier. Meanwhile, Sherlock joins with Metro officers in Washington, DC, to protect 12-year-old piano prodigy Emma Hunt when she performs at the Kennedy Center; granddaughter of a crime boss and adopted by a federal judge, she was abducted at age six and has just avoided another kidnapping. With a 200,000-copy first printing.
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
Dillon Savich and Lacey Sherlock, Coulter's famous pair of married FBI agents, take on two cases that have roots buried deep in the past. After the murder of her parents in Virginia, 12-year-old Allison Rendahl barely escaped by climbing out a window and hiding in a cave. Her Uncle Leo took her back to his home in Australia and raised her to be a strong woman who helped him lead extreme adventures, but her mental scars remain. Now, under the name Kirra Mandarian and after attending law school at the University of Virginia, she's returned to her hometown as a prosecuting attorney, hoping to solve the murder of her parents. Finding a painting by her father, who was an artist, with photos taped to the back gives her the clues she needs, and using the name Eliot Ness, she gathers and sends incriminating information to Agent Dillon Savich. On the other side of the country, 12-year-old piano virtuoso Emma Hunt, who was traumatized at age 6 when she was kidnapped by a troubled priest, becomes the target of another predator. Savich and Sherlock, his partner and wife, were involved in the original case, and the Hunt family is flying to D.C. both to attend Emma's concert at the Kennedy Center and to get her into a safer environment. Emma's grandfather, a sophisticated crime boss, could well be the reason Emma is targeted for kidnapping. At any rate, the people involved in both cases are stone-cold killers who will use any means to achieve their goals. Savich and Sherlock must identify those goals or die trying. Pulse-pounding terror mixed with romance makes for page-turning pleasure. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
