Loved it! I am always amazed how Karen Rose can weave a story with so many characters and plots so flawlessly. Most of the characters are ones weā€™ve met through the 15 books in this series. We have a grown up Alec Vaughn, who we first met when he was 12 in the 4th book, who now works for PI Clay Maynord who weā€™ve also met in previous books before. The main characters of this book are Clay and Stevie Mazzetti. They are not new character to those that have been following the series since the beginning. And weā€™ve gotten bits and pieces of Stevieā€™s tragic story in previous books. This book finally gives us the whole story.

Eight years ago Stevieā€™s husband and son were killed in a robbery. All these years she has thought it was as tragically simple as that. But that was so not the case. This book was one huge puzzle with so many pieces that little by little as the author allowed them to snap into place you were shocked at how complex a mess it was and how many peopleā€™s lives were affected.

Iā€™m not going to go into detail about the plot as it should be experienced while reading. I will say that I am happy that Stevie and her daughter finally got resolution and that Clay finally got the woman heā€™s been pining for years for.
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From Fantastic Fiction Book Description:
A cold case reopened. A murderer re-emerging more deadly than ever before...
Baltimore Homicide Detective Stevie Mazzetti has suffered losses no woman should have to endure. And, despite it all, she's still a fighter. When she learns that her ex-partner might have miscarried justice, she's determined to put the past to rights, even when she becomes a target.

It's former Marine Clay Maynard's job to see the risk in every situation, but he doesn't have to look hard to find the danger surrounding Stevie. Since the minute he first saw her, Clay has wanted to protect the wounded officer, and he started loving her not long after that. So when Stevie attracts the attention of a vicious psychopath, Clay will do whatever it takes to keep her alive. That is, if he can stay ahead of a killer with everything to lose - and something terrifying to hide.

My Thoughts:
The main protagonists are characters from earlier offerings and there are certainly a lot of them...52 to be exact. The suspense part of the book started with a bang and never faltered. Karen Rose chose to develop the suspense plot in two separate threads, which she joint towards the end of the book. This allowed her to keep the reader for a long time in the dark and created a lot of suspense. there were far too many names involved in the plot. Some of them were characters from previous books but for somebody who hasn't read the previous books or doesn't remember those main characters, this might be a problem. Also the ending of the book was completely overcrowded with details that were relevant to the case.... it didn't make any sense to me to be bombarded with these details towards the end of the book. I believe the plot would have been better supported had these pieces of information been used earlier in the plot. Maybe less would have been more in this case? This certainly would have left more space for the happy end to sink in. But Karen Rose always tells a good story. This one seemed to take a long time to get into the action, but did not disappoint after getting there.
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Een erg dikke thriller, te dik. Veel romantiek met een hoog Bouquetreeks- en seksgehalte. Erg veel personen die voor het verhaal niet allemaal even relevant waren. Het simuleert mij niet om meer van Karen Rose te lezen. ( )

I've enjoyed most of the books in this romantic suspense series but this one not so much. I didn't care for the heroine's behavior personally or professionally. She made the relationship go from bad to worse detracting from the plot which started to drag. Security guru Clay tries to protect injured cop Stevie who someone is trying to kill.
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Gave up - didn't like the character or the way story shaping. ( )