Sunday, December 1, 2024

Lethal Standoff by DiAnn Mills

Genre: Romantic Suspense
Publisher: Tyndale House
Released: Sept. 1, 2024
368 pages
About the Book:

Justice can be elusive. Family secrets can be deadly. The stakes are high, and the clock is ticking in a volatile criminal case filled with unanswered questions. And Carrington Reed is running short on time to piece together clues that will solve the puzzle. 

Hostage negotiator Carrington Reed is called to the scene when reports come in that fifteen hostages are being held by the Kendrix brothers in an abandoned house in south Texas. When she arrives on site, Carrington quickly learns that the brothers are armed and refuse to release their victims, a group of undocumented immigrants, until the local police identify their father’s murderer. Working closely with Levi Ehrlich, a handsome investigative reporter who has covered some of Carrington’s negotiations in the past, she finds herself being undeniably drawn to him. Carrington digs deeper into the death of the Kendrixes’ father and begins to notice that some details surrounding his death aren’t adding up. As Carrington investigates the brothers’ claims and tries to piece together their motive for taking innocent people captive, it soon becomes clear that they are trying to hide something and that revenge for their father’s death may not be what they’re really bargaining for after all. To protect the hostages and ensure the brothers don’t carry out the rest of their sinister plot, Carrington must get to the bottom of one family’s secret and the truth they’re trying so hard to hide before time runs out.
  

My Rating & Thoughts:    

I listened to this on audio, and I have to admit I was thrown off at the first with the switching back and forth between the female and male narrators. Once I was used to it I appreciated the ease of knowing who's POV I was getting. Carrington is a private hostage negotiator who gets called into some complicated situations, Levi is a journalist who ends up at quite a few of the scenes Carrington is working. For one particular situation the two of them begin working together in hopes of obtaining a peaceful resolution. I quickly become invested in the story and trying to figure out what was going on and were the bad guys really who they were made out to be, or was there other reasons for their actions. I liked how Carrington and Levi worked together to seek answers and tried to help the teens involved. The reveal at the end shocked me as I hadn't expected it to go that way. My criticism of the story is that I found Levi's Jewish faith talk hard to follow and understand at times. Maybe if I had a better grasp on this to begin with it would have been easier for me.

(I received an ARC of this book from Tyndale through NetGalley; 
opinions expressed in this review are my honest opinion and completely my own.)

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