Review: Gripping in its intensity!
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 07 26, 2013
I have been really excited to read this book. I love Helene Young's work, and this one most definitely didn't disappoint!When the plane that photo-journalist Ellie Wilding was a passenger in landed in war-torn Kandahar with a fellow journalist, little did she know her life was about to be completely shattered. Her sister Nina, herself a journalist, didn't meet Ellie on landing as was pre-arranged, and she felt a fission of worry. But when she was picked up by Australian soldiers and rushed to the nearby hospital to find Nina in emergency surgery after an abduction and subsequent gunfight, the terror hit Ellie like a punch to the stomach.Two years later, Ellie was home again, after trying to run from her intense grief. But her dear friends Ron and Mavis had emailed her, begging her for help in her home town of Half Moon Bay in NSW, Australia. Evidence of corruption, drug running and shady dealings throughout the local council were rife, with the lord mayor seeming to be the main instigator...but with no proof, they needed Ellie's help.With Ellie's dad, Tom, away, Shadow was Ellie's only companion....oh how she had missed him while she had been away on her travels! But now they would work together to save Half Moon Bay...when devastatingly handsome Nicholas Lawson appeared on her doorstep, Shadow (normally not a dog to make friends easily) went straight to Nick with tail wagging. But Nick was the opposition, wasn't he?As tensions accelerated, suddenly the danger seemed to be everywhere. Stretching from an old friend in Sydney up to her home town, Ellie wasn't sure who she could trust. It seemed the links from Afghanistan were stretching across the world, and the horror and violence was suddenly on their doorstep.Would Ellie be able to save her beautiful town from destruction? Would she be able to save herself? And whose side was Nick really on?The incredible pace of this novel, the tensions both in Afghanistan and Australia, the twists throughout, made for a brilliant read. Helene Young has a great talent for storytelling, and her best is only getting better!