ATF agent JT Hawk is wounded during a bust gone horribly wrong and realizes that he was set up by someone in the agency. Fellow agent Abby Wells is also in danger, but won't believe JT, so he takes her hostage for her own safety. While on the run they have to stay hidden, figure out who is trying to kill them, protect JT's critically injured partner and deal with the long simmering attraction between them.
This book had serious problems right from the beginning. The scene where JT decides to handcuff himself to Abby didn't make sense. Having the two of them attached to each other made it far more likely that they were both going to end up dead, which is what JT was trying to avoid. It felt like something that happened purely to set up the rest of the plot, not an organic part of the story. That got the book off to a bad start, but it was far from the only nonsensical thing that happened.
JT's partner Logan is critically injured during the bust and has to be rushed to the hospital by helicopter. En route he's treated by a nurse named Callen. In spite of Logan's grave condition the two share a "moment" and once they arrive at the hospital Callen refuses to leave his side. How convenient that Logan's flight was apparently the end of her shift.
It's also convenient that Logan apparently has no family and no friends other than JT because Callen ends up being the only person with him. When JT calls Callen is the only one available carry out his instructions about hiding Logan from the killer. With no hesitation at all Callen starts moving Logan around the hospital and switching patients charts so that anyone looking for him will be unable to locate him. I have a couple of nurses in my family so I know a little about the job. No nurse would do that because A) a patient could receive the wrong treatment and B) when she gets caught she's going to get fired. Of course no nurse I've ever met would initiate sex in a hospital room with a critically injured patient either, so maybe Callen just went through a really unique training program.
Sadly, this was not the most irritating dumb thing in the book. That honor goes to the big confrontation scene. JT & Abby have broken Logan out of the hospital with Callen in tow and gone to track down the killer. JT goes charging off into the woods to capture him and needs back up. Who does he take with him? Logan. That's right, he chooses the man with the broken leg, concussion, cracked ribs and internal bleeding over the woman who is also a fully trained agent and happens to be completely healthy. Why does he do this totally idiotic thing? Because that's the only way to leave the 2 women alone at the car so that they can be captured by the killer and subsequently saved by the big strong men of course. Both TSTL and sexist---what a combo.
For me the term "wallbanger" is generally just an expression but in this case it took everything I had not to literally hurl the book across the room. That was too bad because I thought both JT & Abby were interesting characters. I just wish that I had met them in a much better book.
Grade: D
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