Where Death Meets the Devil by L.J. Hayward

Narrated by Rowan Scott

This review was originally published in 2019, when this audiobook was first released. Where Death Meets the Devil is the first in a fast-paced, action-packed romantic suspense series comprising three full length novels (Where Death Meets the Devil, Why the Devil Stalks Death and When Death Frees the Devil) and five novellas – all of which are essential to the continuing relationship and character development. Narrator Rowan Scott did an outstanding job, but sadly,  only this first book has been available in audio – until now.  Decent Fellows Press (who also brought us John Wiltshire’s More Heat Than the Sun series) has recently acquired the rights to the Death and the Devil series and retained the services of Rowan Scott to record the other books (including the novellas), which are slated for release in November/December and in January 2023.  Where Death Meets the Devil has recently been reissued, and I can’t wait to listen to the rest, and for this terrific series to find the new audience it richly deserves. 

I’ve been looking for something to fill the Seven of Spades-shaped hole in my life, so I was delighted to discover L.J. Hayward’s Where Death Meets the Devil, book one in her Death and the Devil series. In it, a former SAS officer and a deadly assassin end up striking the devil’s own bargain when they’re forced to work together in order to survive a trek across the hostile Australian desert while evading a shit-ton of mercenaries in the pay of a dangerous mob boss.

Where Death Meets the Devil opens on probably the crappiest birthday ever for Jack Reardon, who, instead of partying, drinking of lots of beer and stuffing his face with cake, finds himself tied to a chair in a shack in the middle of the back of beyond. He’s an operative of the Office of Counterterrorism and Intelligence – known simply as The Office – run by the Meta-State, a top secret intelligence network stretching across Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia, Singapore and other Southeast Asian countries which share information and resources to combat national and international terrorism; and for the last fifteen months he’s been working undercover in the criminal organisation run by Samuel Valadian in an attempt to find proof of his association with terrorist groups around the world. But someone has alerted Valadian to the presence of a spy in their midst – hence Jack’s current predicament. He tries to brazen it out, but when Valadian calmly introduces his associate Ethan Blade – one of the world’s deadliest, most ruthless killers – Jack figures his luck has run out.

Except… it hasn’t. Instead of killing Jack, Blade helps him to escape – and thus begins a compelling story full of action, suspense, mind games, obfuscation, half-truths and lies, as Jack and Ethan become reluctant allies, Ethan determined to complete his mission to take out Valadian, Jack needing to get the valuable intel stored in his neural implant (there’s a futuristic touch to some of the gadgetry in the story – Jack has an implant in his head that can do all the stuff a smartphone can do) back to his boss at the Office. Along the way, the two men have to watch each other’s backs in order to survive, and while they don’t exactly trust each other, an unlikely bond develops between them, something born of mutual respect and a kind of almost instinctual mutual understanding, at least on some levels. Complicating matters still further is the enigma that is Ethan Blade – a riddle wrapped in a mystery behind dark shades – a man who never gives a straight answer to a straight question, who definitely has his own agenda, and who is a strangely appealing mixture of childlike enthusiasm, innocence, dry humour and cold lethality. A mixture that Jack slowly begins to find far too tempting for his own peace of mind.

It’s not a spoiler to say that the men do escape the desert, because Where Death Meets the Devil is in fact a brilliantly structured dual-timeline story told in chapters that alternate between “Then” – Jack and Ethan in the desert – and “Now”, the events of exactly one year later (and yet another unconventional birthday for Jack!) that kick off when Ethan calmly walks into the Sydney HQ of The Office and gives himself up. Jack is still dealing with the fallout of what happened a year earlier; he’s not yet been cleared to return to field duty and he’s well aware that’s because his superiors aren’t 100% convinced they can trust him. Ethan’s unexpected arrival could place Jack’s career in further jeopardy, but the assassin isn’t talking – and Jack knows that he’s likely the only person who will be able to find out what games Blade is playing. So, a year to the day since they first met, Jack and Ethan find themselves facing off again – except this time, Jack is determined to keep both his distance and the upper hand. He knows that there’s no way Ethan would have surrendered to the authorities for no reason, but if Jack’s to find exactly what’s going on, he’s going to have to decide once and for all whether he can really afford to trust Ethan Blade.

I was absolutely captivated by the story from the very beginning and remained pretty much on the edge of my seat the whole way through! Sometimes in dual timeline stories, I find one storyline more compelling than the other, but that wasn’t the case here at all; L.J. Hayward has structured the story so well, creating a series of (mini) cliffhangers between chapters that dovetail together or mirror each other in such a way that the transitions never jar. The plot is incredibly clever, but what makes the novel so special is the central relationship and the characterisation of the two leads. Jack and Ethan are like different sides of the same coin – a fact that doesn’t escape Jack – in that they both kill for money, but they come at it from completely different ends of the legal and moral spectrum. Both of them are clearly carrying around a significant amount of emotional baggage, Jack from his time in the SAS, and Ethan… well, there’s still a lot we don’t know about him. Their relationship is superbly written, too, a wonderful, sexy mixture of opposites attract, enemies-to-lovers and sizzling slow burn that culminates in love scenes that are hot, sensual and organic to the story, serving to build intimacy and illustrate the shifting feelings the two men are developing for one another. And those feelings are extremely well articulated even though the story is told entirely from Jack’s PoV; this enables Ethan to remain something of an enigma, but the author does a fabulous job of showing us Ethan through Jack’s eyes, revealing a surprising vulnerability that Jack doesn’t always see. The story ends with a promising HFN, and I’m really hoping that the rest of the books (there’s a series of novellas set between books one and two, and a third full-length novel in the works, I believe) will follow in audio at some point.

The name Rowan Scott was completely unknown to me, and when I looked him up at Audible, I found only this audiobook listed for him, so I admit to being a little apprehensive before I started listening. But this turned out to be one of the times when a new-to-me narrator proved to be a pleasant surprise; Mr. Scott delivers a strong performance, and as the story takes place in Australia and most of the characters are Australian, I was really pleased to hear an Australian narrator had been used. His voice is easy on the ear, his performance is well-paced, and while he doesn’t have a particularly wide range when it comes to timbre or pitch, he differentiates fairly effectively between the large secondary cast, and his portrayal of the two leads is excellent. He captures the dynamic between them really well, and the English accent he uses to portray Ethan is accurate and consistent throughout (and ridiculously sexy, too!). The interactions between the pair are well-timed and the ever-changing emotions between them nicely played. On the downside, the female characters in the story don’t sound particularly feminine, and one character sounds as though he’s got a cold, but otherwise, Mr. Scott’s pacing is good, his enunciation is clear and he’s emotionally engaged with the story in a way that communicates itself to the listener and definitely added to my overall enjoyment.

Where Death Meets the Devil is a terrific start to what promises to be a hugely entertaining series. The plot is complex and twisty, the central characters are compelling, and their relationship is just the sort of messed-up and angsty that I tend to enjoy. It’s highly recommended – but be warned… it’s addictive. Once you’ve started listening, you won’t want to stop!

Caz