Trust Me by Rachel Grant

Narrated by Nicol Zanzarella & Greg Tremblay

Trust Me, book two in Rachel Grant’s Evidence: Under Fire series is a cracker of a story that brings together characters from her original Evidence series and the Flashpoint books (one of my all-time favourite romantic suspense series). I enjoyed it a lot; as always with this author, the suspense plot is clever, complex and intricately plotted, and while the romance develops quickly, I liked the couple together and overall, the romance works better than it did in the previous book (Into the Storm). We met some of the characters in that book – SEAL Lt. Chris Flyte was a major secondary character, and Xavier Rivera appears briefly – but there’s no real crossover in terms of the storylines, so Trust Me can be listened to as a standalone. Plus, narration from the author’s two ‘regulars’ – Nicol Zanzarella and Greg Tremblay – makes this an excellent bet in audio.

Archaeologist Dr. Diana Edwards is currently working as a guest professor at a university in Jordan, where she is leading an excavation on a site in the desert, the dig funded – through the university – by an American company specialising in tourism and exclusive replica art. Diana has spent the last few months supervising the work at the site near Amman, but unbeknownst to all but a select few, she’s also working on behalf of the Friday Morning Valkyries, a group set up by Dr. Morgan Adler (Tinderbox) and former CIA operative Freya Lang (Firestorm) which attempts to stop the trafficking of artifacts from Jordan and Syria – the profits from which are used to fund terrorism. In this, they work alongside the Cultural Heritage Monitoring Lab (which actually exists), whose mission is to protect, remove or restore artifacts when sites and museums are threatened. FMV’s mission is more covert, their job to track the supply chain once the items have disappeared. The author wastes no time in getting her story started and throws the listener right in, as Diana, on her way to meet with a possible source of information, is kidnapped.

After discovering that his wife was cheating on him – with another SEAL, no less – Chris Flyte decided he needed to get away from Coronado and has recently transferred to a new team based out of Little Creek, Virginia where, although he’s been a SEAL for longer than almost anyone else on his team, he’s now the newbie. He’s about to undertake his first mission with his new team – the rescue of an American archaeologist taken hostage by Islamic State terrorists.

While Chris and his team are en route, Diana is waiting for the optimal time to activate her subdermal tracker (she needs to be within range of an active cell or satellite signal) which will provide an exact location. When the chance finally presents itself, however, she decides not to do it. She’s just been brought into the presence of the man responsible for her abduction and recognises him as a terrorist responsible for far worse things than artifact trafficking – Makram Rafiq was previously on the US’s Most Wanted list and was removed only after he was (supposedly) killed in a US military strike two years before. Yet here he is, in the flesh, standing right in front of her.

When the camp is breached, Diana is forced into the wadi tunnels by her two guards. But they’re moving slowly and are soon confronted by a man she assumes must be a SEAL, there to effect her rescue. She makes a split-second decision; if she remains with her captors, she will be able to do something real and substantial in the fight against looting and trafficking and funding terrorism. If she goes along with Rafiq’s plan – he wants her to clean all the looted artifacts he has amassed – she will be able to gather intel on where the items are coming from and help to cut off the supply chain. But to do that, she can’t let herself be pulled out now.

Chris can’t believe his eyes and ears when Diana basically refuses to be rescued. He can’t help but be reminded of the last rescue mission he was on – another hostage who didn’t want to be rescued who put the entire team in danger – and he’s not at all pleased. But without a clear shot at the man holding a knife to Diana’s throat, he has no option but to let her go. It’s not until he returns to HQ and his bodycam footage is examined that Morgan and Freya are able to decode Diana’s hand signals and work out what she’s doing. The military – and the government – are prepared to go along with her plans, and it’s another two months before Diana activates her tracker and the team is once again sent in to extract her. Successfully this time.

Unfortunately, however, Diana’s troubles don’t end with her return home. Back in the US, the authorities have started to question her assertion that Rafiq is still alive, and the Kingdom of Jordan is pressing to have her extradited to face charges relating to the looting of valuable artifacts (despite the fact that she was acting under duress). Her professional reputation is in tatters. And she’s convinced she’s being followed by Jamal, one of the two brothers who were assigned to guard her, and who is clearly out for revenge over his brother’s death. But with everything that’s happened and IS happening – can she be sure of her own eyes? And even if it IS Jamal – will anyone believe her?

The plot thickens and the action comes thick and fast once Diana is back in the US, as it becomes clear that there’s another hand (besides Rafiq’s) stirring the pot, trying to discredit Diana and have her take the fall for the looting and artifact trafficking out of the sites she was forced to work on in Jordan. As far as the romance goes, although Diana and Chris meet a couple of times in the early stages of the novel, it really begins when they meet at a party to celebrate Morgan’s birthday, and subtle interest turns into a combustible spark of attraction. Things develop quite quickly, but the author allows them the time to get to know each other and to communicate effectively about their wants and expectations. They’re both in their thirties (he’s thirty-five, she’s thirty-two) and have had long-term relationships, they’re intelligent, resourceful and career-oriented, and they make a great couple; I liked their honesty and willingness to be vulnerable with one another.

The narration is, of course, excellent, with Ms. Zanzarella reading from Diana’s PoV and Mr. Tremblay from Chris’. As with Into the Storm, there are a couple of other PoVs as well, but unlike that book, these perspectives feel more relevant as the characters in question are clearly being set up to be the next couple in the series. The narration is well paced and enunciated, with clear differentiation and a good variety in vocal characterisation. The low pitch Mr. Tremblay adopts for Chris’ dialogue has a resonance that does well to depict him as a physically imposing man, and he portrays the various male secondary characters – especially Rand and Ian – distinctly so they’re easy to tell apart aurally. Ms. Zanzaralla is equally adept when it comes to the female characters, although as I’ve said previously, her male voices can sometimes sound a little too similar to my ears. Both narrators do a great job when it comes to delivering the emotion in the story, and I was especially impressed with the way Ms. Zanzarella conveys the horror and trepidation Diana feels inside while she’s refusing to let her captors see it on the outside.

Trust Me is a fantastic combination of thriller, suspense and romance, and is, IMO, Rachel Grant’s best book since Firestorm. If you’re a fan of the genre and haven’t tried one of her books yet, this would be a terrific place to start, and in audio, there’s the added advantage of a great performance from two of the best voice actors around.

Caz

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