All sins are punished one day.
For the ruthless traitor protected deep within Washington, DC, that day has come. Alina Maschik has only one goal: find, expose, and eliminate the person who brought a terrorist onto United States soil. For an assassin trained to hunt for a living, this was a straight-forward, text-book mission. But nothing is ever simple with Alina. Unjustly labeled a rogue agent, she’s made it to the top of America’s Most Wanted list, her own government wants her dead, and everyone close to her is becoming a target. Now, in order to protect those she loves, Alina must work quickly to uncover the traitor…before they uncover her.
Viper returns in the riveting sequel to Next Exit, 3 Miles, determined to ensure that a national traitor pays for their sins, once and for all.
Review
In my review of Next Exit, 3 Miles, I said, “If her next books continue in the vein of this one, I will be a fan for life.” This one did and I will be!
From the opening page, this book takes us right back into the lives of Viper and Hawk, the highly skilled assassins that work for the US in a clandestine agency within the Department of Homeland Security—an agency so elite that only a handful of people know about it. Alina—code name Viper—has been given an extremely risky and almost impossible mission to uncover a national traitor to the U.S. government. A mission made more difficult because this traitor is part of the political machinations of government whose position gives them the power and authority to manipulate things to accomplish their own evil agenda.
Part of that agenda includes labeling Viper a rogue agent so they can have justification to eliminate her before she exposes them and takes out the person or persons responsible for bringing the terrorist to the U.S. in book one. To make matters worse, Hawk ends up with a king’s ransom on his head in an attempt to bring out the guns to get rid of him as well.
The author builds suspense so skillfully that at the quarter mark, I felt my stomach begin to clench and pretty much stay that way to the end of the book. Browning’s mastery of words kept me tightly focused on the story and in the moment with the characters. Example: “Damon beat them all to the door, moving so swiftly and silently that he seemed to materialize to the right of it before Stephanie or Michael had taken more than a few steps.”
Browning also turned up the heat between Alina and Damon in this story, giving us plenty of sizzle without the graphic detail that would be a turn off for many of her readers, including this one. I will admit, I hope these two interesting characters end up together in the final book.
From what I understand, the next fix (and I think the last) in the series will be here around August or September. Fingers crossed. I highly recommend this book. 5+ stars