COLD HEAT is the seventh instalment in Toni Anderson’s contemporary, adult COLD JUSTICE-MOST WANTED romantic suspense series, set in the author’s COLD JUSTICE series. This is thirty-four year old, FBI Hostage Rescue Team operator Jordan Krychek, and twenty three year old, nuclear physicist PhD student Daisy Montana’s story line. COLD HEAT can be read as a stand alone without any difficulty. Any important information from the previous story lines is revealed where necessary.
Told from dual omniscient third person perspectives (Daisy and Jordan) COLD HEAT follows FBI Hostage Rescue Team operator Jordan Krycheck as his latest assignment finds him in Mexico discretely protecting our story line heroine. Daisy Montana,the twenty-three year old daughter of Jordan’s best friend, is in Mexico with her team of nuclear physicist when the murder of a colleague pulls Jordan Krycheck out of the shadows and into the light. Jordan thinks he recognizes the killer, a man long thought dead and gone, and in this, Jordan is determined to uncover the truth even if he has to go all the way to the top. In an effort to keep his identity a secret, Daisy and Jordan pretend to be lovers, an arrangement that becomes anything but fake.
The world building is detailed and complex, involving Russian operatives, dirty law enforcement, espionage and terrorism, and government officials on the take. Terrorist are determined to infiltrate the nuclear reactor where Daisy has been conducting her work, terrorists that are vaguely familiar to our story line hero.
The relationship between Daisy and Jordan begins acrimoniously as Daisy struggles with the need for protection but when a colleague is murdered, and others are suspected of international terrorism, Daisy battles between head and heart believing she is responsible by association for everyone involved. Jordan never thought he would fall in love with his best friend’s daughter but when Daisy becomes the target of some powerful people, Jordan is willing to sacrifice everything to protect the woman he loves. The $ex scenes are intimate and passionate, without the use of over the top, sexually graphic language and text.
There is a large ensemble cast of colorful, familiar and energetic secondary and supporting characters. We are introduced to FBI Director Ursula Director Rhodes, Daisy’s father and Jordan’s best friend / boss Kurt Montana; as well as the mention of several more characters from the original Cold Justice series, and the return of former CIA assassin turned cybersecurity expert Alex Parker; ASAC Steven Mac McKenzie, HRT leader Payne Novak,Max Hawthorne and Lucy. The requisite evil has many faces.
COLD HEAT is a story of secrets and lies, power and control, espionage and treason, betrayal and vengeance, family and relationships, acceptance and love. The character driven premise is dramatic, gritty and edgy; the romance is seductive; the characters are determined, desperate and charismatic.
copy supplied for review