Narrated by Eric G. Dove
Cold Wicked Lies is book three in Toni Anderson’s Cold Justice: Crossfire series, which is a spin-off from her long-running Cold Justice series. I recently listened to book one of the Crossfire books, Cold & Deadly, and thoroughly enjoyed it; I’ve leapfrogged over book two (which I intend to listen to very soon), but even though characters from other books do appear in others, all the books in both series work as standalones, so I had absolutely no trouble diving straight into this one.
The Crossfire series features characters who work as negotiators in the FBI’s Crisis Negotiation Unit, agents who are deployed to manage crisis situations and hopefully bring them to a peaceful resolution through negotiation and co-operation. In Cold Wicked Lies, the CNU is called to a remote mountainside location in Washington State to try to prevent an armed standoff between law enforcement and the inhabitants of a local survivalist compound. When TJ Harrison – son of the group’s leader – stumbles across the dead body of a young woman in the nearby woods, he is discovered by a Federal Wildlife Officer who clearly assumes he had something to do with her death. Scared, TJ runs back home followed by the FWO, who is shot and wounded by someone inside the compound. A gun battle between those on the inside and local Sheriffs and other FWOs ensued, and now the compound is locked down tight – and the last thing the FBI wants is another Waco or Ruby Ridge.
Supervisory Special Agent Charlotte Blood of the CNU is Negotiations Commander for this case, and when she arrives in Washington, she finds her opposite number – the Tactical Commander – has already arrived. She hasn’t worked with HRT Gold team leader Payne Novak before, but the frowns and flat stares he’s sending her way would tend to indicate he doesn’t approve of her. But Charlotte doesn’t care. She’s there to do a job and save lives, not pander to territorial macho bullshit, and if Novak has a problem working with a woman at the same level, then tough.
Payne Novak doesn’t have a problem working with a woman, but the impression he’s got from Charlotte Blood the few times he’s seen her is of someone more likely to bake cupcakes, hold hands and kiss booboos than to play hardball with killers. She clearly doesn’t like him, but they’re in command of this shitshow and they’ll have to work together somehow. After all, it’s not as if their objectives are different; they’re here to end the siege, save lives and protect the innocent. It’s just that they have very different ideas as to go about achieving that.
Their thinly veiled hostility is evident from the start when Novak isn’t pleased at Charlotte’s insistence that they go to view where the body of the young woman was found rather than going straight to the nearby ranch where their command centre has been set up. Her general bonhomie just reinforces his first impression of her as a people-pleaser; Novak’s unexpected and off-the-wall (if you can call stripping naked in the freezing cold to prove you’re unarmed off-the-wall!) actions to retrieve the injured Wildlife Officer cements Charlotte’s initial impression of him as reckless and intent on sidelining her. Her disapproval of his actions doesn’t prevent her from appreciating his toned and muscled naked body though ;)
When Charlotte later expresses her concern about Novak’s handling of that situation to their boss – Incident Commander Steve Mackenzie – he makes it clear that he expects them to learn to work together, or they’ll be pulled off the case. Neither of them wants that, so they’re given an ultimatum. They have to spend the next seventy-two hours shadowing each other – “joined at the hip” as Mackenzie terms it – and at the end of that time, they have to convince him they can work as a team. They have to eat together, sleep in the same room and basically do everything together, something neither of them is happy about as it means they have to ‘take turns’ as to what they do each day when both of them would much rather be spending it with their own teams, analysing, briefing, setting up equipment and drawing up plans.
As it turns out, the ‘shadowing’ idea starts to prove itself surprisingly effective, as it enables Charlotte and Novak to gain an insight as to how the other operates. I really enjoyed this aspect of the story and the way they both learned from each other and found themselves gaining a new respect and admiration for one another. The plot is compelling, with some of the chapters told from TJ’s PoV so we get to see what’s happening inside the compound and realise that there’s something more going on than a group of survivalists determined to face off against government opposition, and there’s a twist near the end I absolutely didn’t see coming.
When it comes to the romance, while the dislike Charlotte and Novak feel for one another at the start is palpable, it’s not long before they realise that there’s attraction there, too, although they both try hard to bury it, because the other is absolutely NOT the sort of person they had ever envisaged themselves falling for. There’s not much time for getting it on in this story, but that felt completely right – I hate books where the leads are in danger but decide it’s okay to stop for a bit of nookie! In any case, the author creates such cracking sexual tension between them that I didn’t feel the book was lacking in sexiness at all. The events of the story take place over just a few days, but there’s such a lot going on and the sense of connection and trust Ms. Anderson creates between the pair is so strong that it feels like the relationship evolves over a much longer period of time.
Eric G. Dove is an extremely experienced narrator with almost 400 titles listed at Audible, but I hadn’t listened to him before I listened to Cold & Deadly a couple of weeks back. He narrates all the Cold Justice books as well as those in this current series, and I enjoyed his performances in both books sufficiently enough to want to listen to more of his work. He has the kind of ‘gritty’ voice that’s perfect for romantic suspense; easy to listen to but with an edge of sorts that works to portray a gruff alpha hero and to convey heightened tension where needed. (I have no idea what it is about that ‘voice-type’ that screams RS to me – it just does!) His pacing and character differentiation are good too; there are quite a few secondary characters in the story – most of them male – and they’re all distinct from one another. If there were any that sounded similar, they didn’t appear in the same scenes, and the main male roles – Novak, Mackenzie and TJ – are all easy to tell apart, with TJ sounding appropriately youthful. Mr. Dove voices female characters convincingly as well, capturing Charlotte’s no-nonsense attitude well, but also conveying the vulnerability and loneliness she keeps hidden.
The siege/hostage rescue plotline is something a bit different to most of the other romantic suspense titles I’ve read or listened to, and I really enjoyed it. Combining a clever, fast-paced plot with an opposites-attract romance dripping with sexual tension, Cold Wicked Lies is a gripping listen and one I recommend wholeheartedly.
Caz
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