Review: OUTSTANDING IN EVERY WAY
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 11 1, 2011
Jack Hunter can't remember much after his Delta Force Team was caught in a building in Lebanon where a bomb went off.  One of his team died, and the others had career ending injuries.  The last thing he does remember before the blast was the face of a blonde, blue eyed American he killed whom he knew was part of the terrorist gang his team followed into the building.Two weeks later recuperating in the states a TV news flash came over with a photo of the man Jack KNEW he'd killed two weeks prior in Lebanon.  Only this body of a prestigious American businessman had just been found in South America.  Jack decided the man's wife had to know something of what her husband had been doing in Lebanon and Jack was going AWOL to discover it.Lauren Collins had been separated two years from her husband, but on her twin boys birthday she prayed her ex-husband's poor attempts at fatherhood would finally result in a visit.  Lauren is unaware of her ex's nefarious business dealings, or that she and her sons would become a target of an insane murderer and his terrorist organization.***  I might have overlooked this book if I hadn't realized that J. L. Saint was aka Jennifer St. Giles, an author I have read and enjoyed before.  I knew without a doubt that even though she had switched genres, a talent for well-written prose and complex plots as brilliant as hers could never be lost to another genre.  I was absolutely correct, and COLLATERAL DAMAGE is an outstanding example of Ms. Saint/ St. Giles' abilities.Jack Hunter, in spite of his harrowing brush with death after a bomb exploded in the building his team had entered was battling both physical and mental injuries.  His body was healing but his mind wouldn't let him remember  the details.  Jack blamed himself for the injuries and death his team walked into.  Saint let the emotions of Jack come to the surface with her telling prose, all the while keeping up the action that propelled COLLATERAL DAMAGE into a thrilling race against time.Along with Jack and Laurens intense sensual attraction to one another, their romance, and their race to put the clues together before she and her boys were captured by assassins, Saint inserted an additional romantic entanglement, and a second villain (not quite as dangerous as the main villain).Bottom line is that COLLATERAL DAMAGE is a  romantic thriller, chock full of military heroes, and dastardly villains and is a complete read that captured this reader from page one to the explosive end. I can't wait to see what comes next in Saint's new Silent Warrior series.Marilyn Rondeau, for [..]