This may be the first Allison Brennan book I've read but it became clear, as I progressed through it, that there have been other stories featuring some of the characters. Fortunately this didn't matter as I was given enough information as a new reader to follow the plot and to understand the relationships between various people, although some of the off-screen characters such as Duke and Jack felt very nebulous.
The heroine of this story, Lucy Kincaid, was kidnapped and raped for online pornography. She ended up killing the rapist, his accomplice was imprisoned and Lucy moved on.
Now, six years later, Lucy volunteers at a charity which helps to track down online predators whilst she applies to work for the FBI. She has tried to get over what happened to her and is making a new life for herself, living with her brother Dillon and his wife Kate.
But Lucy is beginning to feel that she's being watched, and when she discovers that various online predators that she's been setting up have been murdered, things start getting more complicated. Might she actually be in danger again?
This was quite a slow-burn book without a great deal of action for most of it. In fact, the section that you know is coming (Lucy being kidnapped again) seems to happen in just the last few pages. But that's not to say that this is a boring story - by no means. We watch Lucy working out her relationships with her brother and his wife, her former boyfriend and a possible new relationship with PI Sean Rogan. We also have a few sections from the point of view of the stalker which I actually felt the book didn't need - I would almost have preferred to be as in-the-dark as Lucy as events unfolded. But overall this was a good story and, although perhaps characterisation wasn't its strong point, and the large cast of players sometimes got a little confusing to me, I look forward to reading my next book by this author.
Originally published for Curled Up With A Good Book © Helen Hancox 2011