Suspense | Jendi's Journal

A Unique Plot

Kathie Herman’s book The Real Enemy deals with several pretty heavy topics. The heroine, Brill Jessup, is a police chief. The hero, Kurt Jessup, had an affair. Their young daughter has to deal with the hurt her parents are going through. The new town they moved to is very supersitious. People are being kidnapped daily, and the town is also doing it’s best to stay gang free.

Brill Jessup just became the first female police chief in Sophie Trace, Tennessee, and is riding on the credentials of a stellar eighteen-year career on the Memphis police force. She may be a pro at finding clues, but she tends to ignore the obvious in her personal life. And she would rather work than deal with the bitterness she feels about her husband Kurt’s infidelity. Kurt, is weighed down by her unrelenting anger as he struggles to let God redeem the stupidest mistake he ever made. He is genuinely contrite and making every effort to show his commitment to Brill. But she hides behind her badge and her bitterness, deciding that moving her family away from Memphis is the only change she needs to make. So why can’t Brill get over this anger?Before she ever has time to unpack her boxes, people start disappearing. Lots of them. Seven people in seven days To complicate matters, a local legend has many residents believing that the cause is unearthly?tied to the “red shadows,” or spirits of the departed Cherokee who once inhabited the land.

I have pretty neutral feelings about this story. It was interesting, but not riveting. It was good to read a story with a unique plot. I liked the faith portrayed by Kurt Jessup, but wished that Brill would have regained her fellowship with God a bit sooner. The kindness, concern, and testimony of Tessa, the Jessup’s neighbor made her my favorite character.

This Time She’s The Agent

A lot of the Christian Fiction Suspense books that I’ve read have the hero as the government agent and the heroine as the one that needs protected. It’s normal, expected even. I have no problem with it. That is not the case in Breach of Trust by DiAnn Mills.

Paige Rogers carries her Smith 9mm automatic in her shoulder bag and keeps her Beretta Px4 in the cabinet above the fridge. She also bakes great pies for the town’s citizens. She drops them off on her way to opening the library and helping the football team research their school papers. When her work is done she goes home and checks to make sure no one has been in her house in scenes that remind me of James Bond wrapping a hair around the closet door knobs. Once she even had to disarm a bomb under the hood of her car.

The hero in this book is no slouch either. Although Miles Laird is a successful football coach in a small town he once owned a computer security company, and he still has connections. I liked the way Miles conducted himself in this story. Not a pushover and not a push forward either.

Here’s the back cover blurb:

Paige Rogers survived every CIA operative’s worst nightmare.
A covert mission gone terribly wrong.
A betrayal by the one man she thought she could trust.

Forced to disappear to protect the lives of her loved ones, Paige has spent the last several years building a quiet life as a small-town librarian. But the day a stranger comes to town and starts asking questions, Paige knows her careful existence has been shattered.

He is coming after her again. And this time, he intends to silence her for good…

Paige Rogers is a former CIA agent who lost all she treasured seven years ago when her entire team was killed in a covert mission. She blames their leader—Daniel Keary—whom Paige believes betrayed them. Disillusioned and afraid for her life, she disappeared and started a new life as a librarian in small town Split Creek, Oklahoma.

But her growing relationship with high school football coach Miles Laird and the political ambitions of her former boss threaten to unmask her. When Keary announces his candidacy for governor of her state, he comes after Paige to ensure that she won’t ruin his bid for office by revealing his past misdeeds. He threatens everything she holds dear, and Paige must choose between the life of hiding that has become her refuge . . . or risking everything in one last, desperate attempt to right old wrongs.

For more info visit Christian Fiction Blog Alliance or Tyndale Fiction. Good news – This is the introduction to DiAnn Mills’ Call of Duty Suspense Series.