I was kept interested. It's a good FBI-type read. Lots of action. ( )

*Received from Amazon Vine*

First, this is not a stand alone book. It must be read as the 3rd book in the series following The Widow and The Angel. If you read it without having read the first 2, you will not understand the characters and will most likely be very lost. The book is very weak on its own.

This book picks up where The Angel ended. Norman Estabrook, a billionaire with a need for danger has been arrested. He threatened the lives of those who betrayed him and put him in this predicament--including Simon Cahill, the undercover FBI agent who turned him in, and John March, director of the FBI. The 3rd person Estabrook wants is the anonymous informant, but he must first find his or her identity.

The informant is Lizzie Rush. No one knows she is the informant and she wants to keep it that way. She always wants to help warn Simon about Estabrook, so she heads to Ireland. She doesn't find Simon, but she does find his girlfriend Keira and friend Lord Will Davenport. The story then moves between Ireland and Boston and all the characters we met in the first two books as well as the Rush family introduced in this one.

As with the other 2 books, I found connecting with the characters difficult. I didn't quite understand Lizzie or Will. And their relationship was strange and I couldn't figure it out either. There really wasn't much of a romance here. I don't classify this as a romantic suspense, but just a suspense, yet I expected a little bit more of a depth to the relationship.

The story dragged a bit in the middle and sometimes I felt like there was just too much 'thinking' going on for some of the characters. Bob O'Reilly really gets a big role in this book (like the last), but most of what he does is observe and think about the other characters and it got a little boring. I finished this book with a complete feeling to the story, but still not loving all the characters (I don't like either Abigail or her father, John March).

If you have read the other books and liked them, this one is worth the read. If not, read the other 2 in the series first. I think The Angel was the best of the series, but this one comes in second. ( )

The Mist by Carla Neggers

I would very much like to try to recap this book for you, but there is one minor problem--- there really isn’t much of a story for me to recap. Okay I lied; there is sort of a story if you look real hard. What I could glean from this disjointed novel is that an American Billionaire/thrill seeker has been charged with multiple crimes and is at the center of “an international criminal network”. He vows revenge against those who helped take him down. Naturally he escapes his ‘house arrest’ and begins his revenge.

This is supposed to be a Romantic Suspense novel. I have to beg to differ; this novel has neither romance nor suspense. What it does have is stilted, disjointed dialog, uninteresting shallowly written characters, characters that seem written as if they didn’t even care what the heck happened in the story. We have seemingly helpless females that should have been kicking butt and taking names. Romance? Was there any romance? Well according to what happens on page 263 out of 347 pages, Lizzie admits to falling for Lord Will. How in the heck this happens is beyond me since they really never share much of anything except very childish dialog filled with questions and no answers.

Although it’s true that I have never read anything by this author and it most likely would have helped for me to have had some back story, I’ve never before had as much problems catching up with a series as I had with this book.

Do not buy this book if this is going to be the first one by this author you try. It will be a huge disappointment. If you must read this, go to your local library, save a tree and your book buying money for a Romantic Suspense novel that really is suspenseful and romantic. ( )