"The truth is rarely pure and never simple." (Oscar Wilde)
Stephanie Maddox heads the FBI's Internal Investigations division and is uniquely placed because of her inherent beliefs about right and wrong. She's all about love of country and the greater good. How to shake up a strong-willed person like that? Get to her son. Steph's a single mother to teenaged Zachary. Lately the two haven't gotten along so well and she is suddenly faced with some discoveries that make her realize that she doesn't know Zachary at all. When Steph finds out that Zachary is implicated in a domestic terrorist plot, when she finds a gun hidden in his room, and when she's told that he's in real trouble -- what does she do? DENIAL. Stephanie believes that her son is being framed because of some deep secrets that she discovered as part of her own previous cases and investigations. All she is asked to do in order to protect her son from prison is to "let it go." NO SPOILERS.
Make no mistake, this is a fast-paced and very complicated thriller involving the FBI, CIA and the upper levels of government. It's quite difficult to guess at what is going on, and even after I finished, I had to go back and read the last couple of chapters several times. Even now I'm not quite sure I completely understand all the nuances and the cross-double cross espionage pieces of the plot and definitely unsure of which are the bad guys. As far as the character of Stephanie Maddox -- that's tough. She's definitely dedicated to her job and never makes the choices I'd make as a mom but I guess all she's ever known is how to keep her cards and information close to her chest and she exists in a state of distrust. And she is full of questions and secrets without anyone to turn to with her dilemma.
I was quite surprised to find that this novel is somewhat related to NEED TO KNOW though it's not a series per se. I'll be interested to see what the author does next and if any of these characters reappear in her next book. Although I enjoyed this, I didn't like it nearly as much as I liked the first one. It was a little hard to keep all the players straight as they didn't go into neat little boxes! Probably my fault!
Thank you to NetGalley and Ballantine Books for this e-book ARC to read and review.
3.5 stars
This is a standalone but does have some connection to previous book by this author.
Genre -- spy thriller, FBI agent
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