Review – The Disappearance

“The Disappearance”, book four of CN Bring’s exciting Celia Kelly series follows Tom and Celia’s separate action-packed accounts until the story merges into with an ending  no one can see coming. Yet I shouldn’t have been surprised after reviewing “The Pact” Bring’s first book in the series, when I found her to be a rare new talent who writes unpredictable mystery suspense, with characters and plot lines that demand to be read in one sitting.

In “The Disappearance” Celia is assigned an overseas mission to find and rescue the deputy director of the CIA who happens to be General Turner’s son.  It also means a separation from her husband Tom,  now an NCIS Special cold case Agent “looking into Lieutenant Commander Georgia Round’s” murder.

The story opens with a homeless man, “soaked to the bone” after one of Washington D.C.’s” longest wet spells. When he “notices a fire in a barrel” under the Potomac Park walking bridge he moves quickly, grateful to find a place to “warm up and stop shivering from the plummeting, wind-chilled temperatures.”

Minutes later, rubbing his hands briskly together above the flames, he basks in the warmth and wonders why he’s the only one there. He knows there are many like himself, homeless, cold, wet and miserable on the Washington, D.C. streets. Yet the area is dark and deserted except for him and the flickering flames.

His shivers calmed with the warmth and he examined the barrel from his vantage point above the flames. That’s when he saw the bony fingers of a “skeletal hand” in the flickering flames below. He stepped back and saw what looked like pieces of a “Navy uniform” melted onto the side of the barrel. Shocked he stumbled backward and fell, “catching himself with his hands.” Only to find his right hand resting on a military “ID badge” with the name, “Lieutenant Commander Georgie Round, US Naval Internal Affairs” engraved on it.

Thus begins a compelling and complex military murder mystery with more questions than answers until the final pages are turned and Celia and Tom’s parallel storylines merge into one. The result is an action-packed story of imposters, moles and treason involving the FBI, the CIA and naval intelligence that keeps pages turning rapidly with a story that can be read as a series or as a stand-alone title.

Prayer and the characters dependence on God is a realistic thread that weaves through the faith-based mystery without being intrusive or preachy. While the SEAL teams quips and funny stories add a light touch of humor, often in extreme circumstances.