Narrated by Jeffrey Kafer
I’m not familiar with Kaylea Cross’ work, but she’s written around forty romantic suspense novels (as far as I can tell from Amazon!) and as some are available in audio – and a friend on Goodreads recommended her stuff – I decided to pick one up and give it a go; and on the whole, I was pleased with the result. Disavowed is the fourth book in the Hostage Rescue Team series, but although there are recurring characters from other books (and other series) featured, they’re very much in supporting roles, so this works perfectly well as a standalone.
Special Agent Matteo DeLuca is the commander of the elite FBI Hostage Rescue Team, and it’s evident right away that he’s liked and greatly respected by his colleagues. He and his seven-man assault team are in the middle of an operation to take down Hassan Ramadi, a terrorist responsible for training militants in the use of chemical weapons and planning attacks on American soil, when Matt receives the news that the operation has been compromised. When the team is given the go-ahead to access the remote mountain cabin where their target is holed-up, it’s to discover Ramadi dead from a single gunshot to the head.
A highly-trained assassin, Briar Jones has worked all her adult life for The Company (which I assume is an “off-the-books” black ops division of the CIA or some other government agency), carrying out secret ops to eliminate some of the USA’s most dangerous enemies. She’s supremely good at what she does, but has to admit that this time, things have been played a bit close to the wire; the group of people swarming around the cabin shouldn’t be there – as far as she knows, nobody else knew of Ramadi’s location – and with a storm rolling in, and the potential for discovery growing with every minute she stays put, Briar needs to get out of there quickly. She’s returned to her snowmobile and is heading for the road when a searing pain in her side throws her off balance and off her vehicle; she’s been shot, the snowmobile damaged and the only way back to the mountain road now is on foot – assuming whoever fired at her doesn’t finish her off first.
Following the sound of the shots and then a trail of blood, Matt and his team eventually catch up with their wounded quarry. Matt’s momentary surprise at discovering the assassin is a woman is quickly dispelled; whoever she is, she’s got guts given she’s obviously wounded but is holding a gun on him even as his is levelled at her. The Mexican Standoff is tense and it looks as though nobody is going to back down – until Matt recognises the woman as someone he knows only as “B”, someone he’d met – and hasn’t forgotten – some months earlier at a security conference and who had slipped him some critical information about an operation involving a compromised agent.
Matt is generally an even-tempered guy, but the fact that his team has been put in danger not just once but twice that night has pissed him off and he wants answers. But it seems he’s not going to get them; the higher-ups give him direct orders to escort Briar to a safe house and stay with her while they do some digging around and try to find out who shot her and get to the bottom of what’s going on.
But what’s going on turns out to be bigger and more deadly than either of them at first thought, as news reaches them of the sudden and unexplained deaths of a number of agents and informants Briar had recently been in contact with. Someone is setting her up to take a pretty big fall – but who, and why?
The who is revealed fairly early on, as we get a few chapters told from the villain’s PoV, but that doesn’t detract from the overall impact of the story. Matt and Briar are forced to go on the run when their location is discovered, and what follows is an exciting race against time as the couple try to stay ahead of their enemies while unravelling the web of lies and deceit into which they have fallen. Briar is a kick-ass heroine; supremely capable and good at what she does, she is no damsel in distress and is more than up to pulling her weight in a fight and shooting to kill. Matt is a dozen years older, a tough, experienced agent, and while his protective instincts kick in where Briar’s concerned, he admires her skill and knows she can handle herself, no matter that he wishes she didn’t have to. Her life has been lived in the shadows and she doesn’t trust easily, and I loved the way she gradually comes to let Matt in and to trust him. They have great chemistry, which goes some way to lending their quickly moving relationship a degree of credibility. (The events of the book span less than a week). One thing I found incredibly refreshing was Matt’s attitude towards life and love, a complete contrast to so many romance heroes who have loved, lost and decided ‘never again’ because they don’t want to risk that sort of hurt again. Matt is different; he has learned from the experience and is determined never to take anything for granted and to pay more attention to his relationship and his partner. Losing his wife suddenly some years earlier “taught me to always live in the moment, never pass up the opportunity to tell someone I care.” And he doesn’t. He lets Briar know how he feels, even though their future is uncertain, and I absolutely loved that about him.
Jeffrey Kafer is an extremely experienced narrator with an amazing 500+ titles to his credit at Audible in a wide variety of genres, including non-fiction, science fiction and mysteries. This is the first time I’ve listened to him and I enjoyed his performance overall, although I did have a few small issues with it. Mr. Kafer’s voice is rich and deep, which makes it ideal to portray someone like Matt – a mature man (he’s forty-one), who is capable and confident in himself and his abilities. His pacing is perhaps a little on the slow side, but not so much as to be problematic, and although he differentiates well between characters of the opposite sex, there were a few times I needed the aid of dialogue tags to clarify who was speaking. This happened mostly at the beginning, however, when Matt is with his team and there are several male characters conversing in quick succession – but as most of the story features just Matt and Briar, it isn’t too much of a problem. When it comes to portraying the female characters, Mr. Kafer doesn’t raise the pitch of his voice too much; rather, he adopts a softer timbre and makes a slight alteration to his manner of delivery, which works well.
Picking up Disavowed on the off chance proved to be a good decision. The characters are likeable, the story is tightly written and well put together, and while the romance is perhaps a bit rushed, the author manages to create a strong connection between the leads which helps sell it. Jeffrey Kafer’s narration is a good fit for the story, and I’m certainly interested in listening to more books in the series.
Caz
Buy Disavowed by Kaylea Cross on Amazon
