Narrated by Eric G. Dove
Toni Anderson adds another ‘arm’ to her long-running Cold Justice series with Cold Silence, book one in her her new Cold Justice: Most Wanted, series which features the field agents of the FBI Hostage Rescue Team.
In this story, the HRT is part of a large task force hunting a sadistic serial killer calling themselves Evi1Geni-us who kills their victims via a kind of ‘choose your own murder’ event. During a live-stream, the very select few who are wealthy (and depraved) enough to be able to afford the buy-in, are able to bid on a variety of methods of torture and manners of death and watch while their choices are carried out.
As well as agents from various branches of the FBI, the Joint Task Force includes a small number of civilians, one of whom is Yael Brooks, an employee of cyber security firm Cramer, Parker & Gray, in which the “Parker” is Alex Parker, the former CIA operative who featured in the very first Cold book, Cold justice. While Yael’s best friend Laura tracks the various cryptocurrency exchanges happening during the ‘event’, Yael’s speciality is tracking through code, and she’s working furiously to try to pinpoint Evi1Geni-us’ location. It’s tense; the auction has begun, and thanks to the time and effort Alex has put into creating various shady personas, Yael and the team have a front row seat. She really wishes they didn’t – her job is hard enough without having to work hard not to look at what’s unfolding on the screen.
HRT agent Shane Livingstone was injured during an operation a couple of weeks back, a broken arm meaning he’s out of the field for a while. He’s part of the task force searching for Evi1Geni-us, but when Parker and his colleagues zero in on EG’s location and the HRT is deployed, Shane has to watch from the control room – helpless to do anything but watch in horror when an explosion injures several of the operatives and kills his best friend. Just seconds before, Yael had clued in to the fact that something was wrong, that the auction wasn’t actually live and they’ve been set up. As she searches desperately for answers she realises that somehow, Evi1Geni-us has infiltrated her system and gained control of her camera… and he can see her face.
Toni Anderson’s romantic suspense novels are always tightly plotted with plenty of action, a bit of steam and some real nail-biting tension, and Cold Silence is no exception. Now that EG has seen what Yael looks like, they are able to identify her and track her – and Shane appoints himself her protector. His reasons are not entirely noble, however, because he’s harbouring suspicions that perhaps Yael was the one who may have – inadvertently or not – alerted EG to the FBI’s operation. Even if she was, he’s not about to let her be kidnapped and tortured, but he does want answers, and staying close to her is, he believes, the best way to get them. He’ll just have to ignore the fact that he finds Yael both interesting and attractive, her competency a real turn-on. But he’s never been one for relationships – something he makes clear fairly early on – and no way is he going to break his own rules, no matter how increasingly fascinated he’s becoming by the prickly, self-sufficient hacker.
Yael is aloof and fiercely independent for good reason; a tragic event in her past has led her to leave her home town, change her name and keep herself to herself as much as possible. Being something of an introvert means this isn’t particularly difficult, and she’s not comfortable in social situations – unlike her friend Laura, who is forever trying to get her to go out and date. Yet there’s a vulnerability beneath her carefully cultivated exterior, someone who really longs for love, connection and acceptance, but whose well-founded fear of allowing anyone to get close means she’s stuck watching life go by from the sidelines.
The relationship between Shane and Yael is a slow-burn, which makes a lot sense considering where they are at the beginning of the book. Shane, grieving the death of his best friend and desperate for answers, is guarded and suspicious, and while there’s an initial spark there, an acknowledgement that the other is attractive, they’re both determined not to allow anything to distract them from focusing on their ultimate goal, to put a stop to EG’s killing spree.
If you haven’t read or listened to any of Toni Anderson’s Cold books before, you could conceivably start here, as these are designed as interlinked standalones in which the romances and plots are self-contained, but there are quite a lot of recurring characters by now – some who actually appear on-page, and some who are just name-checked – so the newbie may be just a little bit confused as to who they all are and how they all relate to each other (I’ve listened to quite a few, and even I had to go back to read some of my reviews to check!). On the whole, I enjoyed the cameos and the working relationships and camaraderie the author has developed between the various team-members, and liked that there’s room for humour and good-natured teasing amid the action and edge-of-the-seat tension.
The suspense storyline is gripping and perfectly paced but unfortunately, I wasn’t convinced by the romance. I didn’t feel a great deal of chemistry between Shane and Yael, and they have very little in common apart from a desire to catch the bad guy and their individual guilt complexes (Shane because he should have been the first one in line of the explosion, Yael over events in her past which were absolutely, 100 percent NOT her fault but which she nonetheless angsts over), which aren’t really enough to sustain a relationship. The author wisely leaves them at a solid HFN and deciding to give a relationship a try.
Eric G. Dove returns to the narrator’s chair and, as ever, delivers a solid, well-paced performance with clearly defined characterisations and effective differentiation for both primary and secondary characters. His slightly gravelly timbre is a good fit for this sort of material, and he really knows how to ratchet up and sustain the tension and communicate the emotional content of the story. I appreciate that he doesn’t use his “narrator voice” to portray any of the characters, which means there’s no confusion between narrative and dialogue, and his portrayal of Shane and Yael (which he pronounces “Yah-eel” – I’ve never heard it said, so don’t know if that’s correct) really brings out their personalities, Shane’s cool-headed pragmatism and fierce protectiveness, Yael’s detachment, longing and underlying vulnerability.
Cold Silence gets the Cold Justice: Most Wanted off to a good start with an exciting, twisty plot and the introduction of a bunch of new characters and potential future plotlines and pairings. Shane and Yael work well together, and even though I wasn’t particularly invested in their romance, that didn’t affect my enjoyment of the story overall.
Caz
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