Heart-pounding action with a woman who knows who she is and what she wants, author Jarecki gives me another opportunity to live on the edge, and in this particular story, this remark should be taken literally.

Jarecki is one of those authors you know will entertain you engaging 100% your senses and emotions.

I read this book back in August. I gave it a FIVE-STAR-READ. You would think, even though I thought it a stellar one, I could put it aside, read another book, while listening to this one again. Generally, I’ll listen to an audiobook in a different genre from a book I’m reading. Not a problem keeping the stories straight. Simply put, this story is totally over the top combined with narrator Joel Froomkin. I. Was. Nailed. I couldn’t read anything else. I had to listen to it. And you what? I’d listen to it again just for terrific storyline, accents in dialog and living on the edge!

Froomkin has a certain vibrato in his vocal cords when excited or in a moment of terror. He puts me in the same state. He also does something with the microphone, seemingly getting close to it in an intimate setting. I can’t figure it out exactly. But boy, his narration is powerful. So, coupled with this hugely suspenseful novel by Jarecki set in some of the most dangerous parts of the world, I am blown away. Dang it! It was good! Luckily, I don’t have too long to wait for book 3, Mach One, coming out in January 2018. But let me get you caught up in the storyline.

Henrietta has worked for Delta Force. Her bullet killed Fadli’s brother. It wasn’t as if he didn’t deserve it. He’d had a grenade, ready to pull the pin which would have killed Henri’s entire squadron. Somehow, she was fingered by his brother, Omar Fadli and put behind bars for two years. She’s been wrongly accused and spitting mad with this so-called justice.

She’s set free, offered another career by the very man handing her the release papers, saying they know who got her in prison. Henri isn’t up to trusting anymore. She walks from the prison, turning down this trickster, who’s ready to set her up again. No, never again. She has little faith for the good guys, that is, if they ARE good. She prefers to walk out of prison and lose herself in her grandfather’s mine, on the Paiute reservation. A place to heal, lick her wounds and renew her spirit.

"And I don’t need to be a hero. Been there, done that and was paid in misery. I am to flipping the Army the bird and moving on. "

This new outfit who’d offer the job let her cool her heels for a couple of months and then sent out a handsome Scot, named Mike Rose, to see if she was ready to reconsider. Apparently, by her reaction, she wasn’t.

"She let him approach until she was sure he’d be able to see the muzzle of her rifle peeking between the sagebrush. “I could shoot you for trespassing,” she said, using her badass sergeant voice.”"

"The man took off his sunglasses and grinned. Good Lord, maybe not all the redheads on the planet were pasty. True, he had fair skin, but he looked buff—healthy, even. “Henrietta Anderson,” he said in a deep brogue, waving as if they were old pals. “’Tis good to see you’ve lived up to your reputation.” Jesus, he rolled his “rs”."

There is attraction and apparently from both sides. But Henri is anything but obstinate, yet Mike is her match as you see through the story. He talks her into seeing how the new team, ICE, of which he is a member, could help her seek revenge. She soon realizes that’s just what she wants, to stick it to Omar Fadli.

Henri joins ICE, training hard with the other team members. She comes to respect them. Mike and Henri are thrown together in a mission that is frightfully believable and scary as hell. Y-e-a-h! My kind of read.

I’m always eager to read author Jarecki, a writer who knows how to create thrilling, mind-blowing situations with characters you’ll love. Secretly? I wish I could have the stamina, smarts, passion and drive to reach my goals as they do. Oh, and Henri? Well, she’s just dynamite. Hope we’ll see her in the sequels. Henri, you go girl!