Now Griffin is a park ranger at Gettysburg, having left life as a SWAT-team sniper when a case went bad. The job is mostly quiet--until the day he captures two relic hunters uncovering skeletal remains near Little Round Top. Griffin just wants the case to go away, but charming forensic anthropologist Finley Scott determines that the body is modern--a young social justice lawyer missing since spring--and all evidence points to the work of an expert sniper. When FBI agent Declan Gray takes over the case, past and present collide. Griffin soon realizes he'll need to confront some of the darkest days of his life if he--and those he cares about--are going to escape a downward spiral of murder that crosses continents.
My Thoughts:
This was my first read from Pettrey. It will not be my
last.
The first few chapters of this one started a little slow
for me. There are several characters involved in this series and the
introduction of all of them seemed to take more chapters than usual. However,
once the story really got going, I was glad for the in-depth character
introductions. This is going to be an amazing series and I am happy to have a
little background on everyone.
The book opens straight forward. Griffin discovers a
recently buried body, and everyone else comes in to form the team that will
figure out who the body belongs to, and how it got there. There is obvious tension
between Griffin, Parker and Declan, but it is also apparent they were very close
in the past. As the story progresses and each character is developed, we learn
the demons that haunt each of the men. We see them struggle with the mistakes
and guilt of their past, and we also see them turn to God for his strength and
guidance in their lives. The men in this book are all strong upstanding
characters, and I enjoyed getting to know each of them.
The women in this book are equally exciting. My first
impression of Finley was a non-nonsense woman who only had one goal in life –
succeed. These traits made it difficult for me to like her at first. As her
relationship with Griffin and the group began to grown, her barriers began to
come down and we saw the real woman she is. Finley ended up being a character I
loved. She also has a very difficult past haunting her at every turn. When she
finally reveals all the details of her nightmare, I felt such a connection to
her.
As the group of friends work together to figure out whom
the discovered body belongs to, they quickly realize a sniper is hunting them.
This aspect of the story was so exciting to me, and really made this book a suspense
I could not put down. I kept turning the pages well into the wee hours of the
morning trying to figure out who the sniper was, and who was going to survive
to the end of the book.
I thought the ending of this book was perfect for this
case, and a wonderful transition into the next book in the series. I am not
sure when the next book will be released, but I can assure you it will be on my
reading list. These are characters I want to spend more time with for sure.
Dani Pettrey is a wife, mom, grandma, and the author of Cold Shot, the
first book in the Chesapeake Valor series, and the Alaskan Courage romantic
suspense series, which includes her bestselling novels Submerged, Shattered,Stranded, Silenced, and Sabotaged. Her
books have been honored with the Daphne du Maurier award, two HOLT Medallions,
a Christy Award nomination, two National Readers’ Choice Awards, the Gail
Wilson Award of Excellence, and Christian Retailing’s Best Award, among others.
She feels blessed to write inspirational romantic suspense because it
incorporates so many things she loves—the thrill of adventure, nail-biting
suspense, the deepening of her characters’ faith, and plenty of romance. She
and her husband reside in Maryland, where they enjoy time with their two
daughters, a son-in-law, and a super adorable grandson.
