Review – Dead Drift

Burning debris littering the ground . . . smoke pluming in the acrid air . . . this is just the beginning if he fails.

Seven years ago, operative Luke Gallagher vanished to become part of an elite team set on capturing a deadly terrorist. When Luke returns to face those he left behind, their help becomes his only hope of stopping his target’s latest threat of an attack that would shake America to its core.

Private investigator Kate Maxwell never stopped loving or looking for Luke after he disappeared. But she also never imagined he left her or his life by choice. Now he’s back, and together they must unravel a twisting thread of secrets, lies, and betrayal, all while on the brink of a biological disaster.

Will they and their love survive, or will Luke and Kate become the terrorist’s next mark?

My thoughts:  DEAD DRIFT is the fourth and final book in Ms. Pettrey’s Chesapeake Valor series, mostly set in Maryland. These characters do get around.  Fans will want to read the books in order, Cold Shot, Still Life, Blind Spot and Dead Drift since it is all the same team and there is at least one investigation in common for all four books.

Dead Drift’s primary storyline was about chemical warfare that was planned to be launched on USA soil. I won’t lie and say this was easy reading. A lot of the chemical talk went right over this readers head, and I was somewhat confused by a lot of it. I also tended to skim when they began talking shop. I am a business major, not a chemist.

It was an exciting race against time as they discovered when it was all planned to go down, and one wasn’t sure who they could trust, who they couldn’t and who wasn’t what they seemed.

With the primary suspense, you knew who did it and why, and even how. You even knew when. But you didn’t know where and it was a pretty heavy question.  If was even factored in there but since this is the last book in the series it had to have a happy ever after, so that worry was not as heavy as it could’ve been.

The secondary suspense that tied the four books together (in addition to the same team) you don’t know who or why or when or where or anything except how and it was a huge issue.

Ms. Pettrey is an award-winning author of romantic suspense for good reason. I fell in love with her writing with her first book set in Alaska and have read everything she’s written since.