Monday, March 22, 2021

Unknown Threat by Lynn H. Blackburn Book Review

Unknown Threat by Lynn H. Blackburn
From back cover:
US Secret Service Special Agent Luke Powell is lucky to be alive. Three of his fellow agents have died in unusual circumstances in the past ten weeks. Luke is devastated by the loss of his friends and colleagues, and his inability to locate the killer feels like a personal failure. He and his team are experts at shielding others, but now the protectors are in need of protection. 

FBI Special Agent Faith Malone is driven to succeed and confident in her ability to solve every case she's assigned. She's been put in charge of the investigation into the unprecedented attacks, and with Luke's life in danger, the stakes have never been higher. But it's hard to know how to fight back when you don't know who the enemy is. 

Luke has teamed up with Faith before, but he's not convinced she's up for the job and she's not convinced he's telling her everything he knows. As more agents are targeted, Luke and Faith will have to learn to trust each other and work together to bring a killer to justice and prevent any more names from joining their fallen brother and sisters on the Secret Service Wall of Honor.

I unfortunately found this book to be very disappointing. The suspense/investigative part of the plot just felt really weak. Way too much of the book was focused on relationships (friendship and romance) and feelings than on actually solving the case. 

The romance was really unfortunate too. There just wasn't much there. There is a lot of them thinking about their feelings. Luke hates the FBI, but since Faith is attractive to him that is enough for him to overlook his hatred of the FBI. And apparently all Faith needed was someone to buy her cherry Coke and that's all she needed to fall in love with him. That's really about it. They just didn't have much chemistry, tension, or personality between them. 

They had plenty of meetings to discuss what was going on with the case, lots of empty dialogue, but nothing happens to propel the plot forward. There are never really any clues or leads. Sabrina (from the Dive Team series) was brought in but she really didn't need to be brought into the story. With the exception of her source, I didn't understand how she was able to dig up information that the FBI wasn't able to. I appreciate the fact the author wanted to bring in characters from the Dive Team series, but Sabrina felt forced whereas Gabe actually felt like a natural addition to the story. 

I had my issues with the story but I was still hopeful that the conclusion would be good and leave me feeling somewhat satisfied that the killer was finally caught and we could get some answers; but the ending was a huge letdown for me.

I was left feeling like "Really? All of this for that reason?" I could have maybe understood one death for the reason given, but the lengths the killer went to and for the reason they went to them was just ridiculous. 

I really enjoyed the Dive Team series but found this book to be a sad followup. Too much focus on romance and a disappointing plot really left me wanting more. 

I received a complementary copy of this book from Revell. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.
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