Inferno by Rachel Grant

Narrated by Greg Tremblay

Book 3.5 in the Flashpoint series, Inferno is the latest release from Rachel Grant. While the story is quite self-contained it does contain spoilers for the previous books (especially Firestorm) and I do think the story will work better for those who have read/listened to the previous novels.

Inferno picks up very shortly after the events of Firestorm and the fallout from the reveal of the ultimate bad guy (that’s not actually the best description but I’m being vague on purpose to avoid spoilers). Kaylea Halpert works at the US Embassy in Djibouti. She’s a diplomat but also a covert CIA case office who had a pivotal role in saving the day in the previous story.

Sergeant Carlos Espinosa is a Puerto Rican-born Green Beret and part of the team deployed at Camp Citron in Djibouti, helping to train the local soldiers. Carlos’ team is due to leave Djibouti in only a few days. He’s looking forward to being stateside again but he has had a crush on Kaylea for months so he’s disappointed he didn’t get a chance to date her.

Kaylea is a Black woman with sexy curves and killer fashion style. She wears sleek business suits and knee-high boots Carlos has been thinking about way too much. (To be fair, they are amazing boots.)

Carlos is among the few who have put together that Kaylea is likely a CIA agent and this makes him admire her even more. He describes her as being “brainy, beautiful and badass” and one of the things I loved best about Carlos was how he celebrated Kaylea’s skills and talents. Kaylea had a bit of the James Bond gadgetry going on at times and Carlos was only ever admiring.

When the story begins, Kaylea is invited to a party at the new palatial home of an ex-pat Saudi businessman with suspected ties to the Russian Bratva. She is reluctant to attend because the dude gives her the creeps but is required to because of her job. So she enlists the aid of her favourite Green Beret, Carlos, to pretend to be her boyfriend and stick close for protection.

Carlos and Kaylea don’t stay long at the party and after, finally let their long-simmering attraction out to play. Kaylea is delightfully bold in bed, unashamedly asking for what she wants and Carlos is Here. For. It. Any HEA for them is complicated however because Carlos is about to leave, Kaylea needs to keep her private life very close because of the risks of her job and besides that, she’s staying in Djibouti for the foreseeable future. Who knows when or if they will be in the same country again? How could a relationship between them possibly work in the long term?

Carlos is respectful but also not shy about asking for what he wants. And what he wants is a shot. He knows Kaylea has a super-secret and private email address or phone number which would be known only to her closest family and friends; a way for them to be in contact without the CIA knowing or anyone else. He asks for this information and crosses his fingers that Kaylea will give him a chance.

Then things go terribly wrong as Carlos is attacked and Kaylea has to ride to the rescue and there are explosions, lots of bad guys, some of whom come from unexpected places, and a daring, risky escape.

I have to say, for someone who has the mad skillz that Kaylea does, I did find her email address to be laughably insecure but apart from that, the story was tight and tense with a great mix of romance and suspense which worked well with its novella length. Both main characters got a chance to shine but I especially appreciated how Kaylea got to show off her field skills.

I did have some discomfort about Kaylea’s role with the CIA. The CIA has been responsible for some pretty terrible things, after all. There was a little bit of discussion in Kaylea’s backstory about her having some reservations about the agency herself before she joined but that part of the story didn’t really go anywhere so I was still a little confused at the end as to what changed Kaylea’s mind and why she decided to join/stay. Still, Kaylea herself is an honorable woman and her work is not problematic and that helped.

The narration is excellent. Of course it is – it’s Greg Tremblay! Mr. Tremblay has wonderful female character voices, a wide variety of male tones and is great with accents – never stepping into caricature. He delivers the intimate scenes well, not overdoing it with the enthusiasm but also clearly displaying the developing mutual affection and passion of the characters by his use of tone and emotion. Greg Tremblay is one of my very favourite male narrators; his performance is always of an extremely high quality and I know I’m guaranteed to enjoy it. I feel the similarly about Rachel Grant’s romantic suspense actually.

Kaetrin

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