With his dying breath, Carl Venable, head of the CIA task force on terrorism and Jude Brandon's final link to terrorist ringleader Max Huber, gives Brandon a mandate: to keep his daughter, Rachel, safe at any cost. But Rachel Venable has a shocking, twisted past of her own, one that comes rushing back after her medical clinic in Guyana is attacked by Huber - the same man who murdered her father and kept her imprisoned for months. Brandon and Catherine Ling, Rachel's longtime ally and fierce protector, are determined to keep Rachel out of danger, but she knows that it's impossible to stay hidden when Max Huber wants you dead. As Rachel and Brandon race against the clock to bring Huber down before he can orchestrate a nuclear explosion that will lay waste to the west coast, they also fight a growing attraction to each other - an attraction that could prove just as dangerous as Huber himself.
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3 primary booksCatherine Ling is a 3-book series with 3 primary works first released in 2010 with contributions by Iris Johansen.
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A doctor saving the world with mysterious potions meets a gun for hire sent by her father either to save her or kill her.
Dr. Rachel Venable has dedicated her life to saving lives after surviving a horrific kidnapping experience in her teens changes her life forever. After her father, Iris Johansen cast regular, CIA Carl Venable dies on a mission to kill the men (Red Star) responsible for killing their family, he hands off the mission and the care of his daughter to Jude Brandon. Brandon has his own Vendetta against the organization and decides to use Rachel to his own ends until he meets the woman herself during the first of many attempts on her life. She not only is a pillar of character, she comes with her own team as Catherine Ling is her best friend, Hu Chang is her mentor, and where Catherine goes so does Richard Cameron. Johansen handles both relationships adroitly and the multiple mysteries and dead ends with the occasional surprises thrown in with her usual style.
I will say I have missed a couple of books in this series as I had no clue who Rachel was or until I was writing this review that this was considered a “Catherine Ling” series book. I had never heard of Rachel and the connection with Chang before so I felt like completely thrown as if some stranger had just been thrown into a history I thought I knew so well. It also seems odd for one of the characters to sit out of the story-line knowing the character as well as I do, for story-line purposes and Johansen's intention it makes sense, but not for the character. I will say that I knew all along how it was going to end in the sense that it has become formulaic in how these stories are told now. Rachel is a great character and I liked her. I liked Brandon's back up team. It did seem weird for Catherine to not be as invincible as she always is, but I do not want to give too much away. The book is good, it just seems like I knew what was coming and it was comfortable like a pair slippers after a rough week.
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