Judith’s review of Lucky Like Us (The Hunted Series #2) by Jennifer Ryan
The Hunted series continues as Special Agent Sam Turner discovers that protecting the FBI’s star witness is more difficult than he thought!
Bakery owner Elizabeth Hamilton’s quiet life is filled with sweet treats, good friends, and a loving family. But all of that is about to turn sour when an odd sound draws her outside. There’s a man lying unconscious in the street, a car speeding toward him. Without hesitation, she gets the man out of harm’s way before they’re run down.
Unwittingly, Elizabeth has put herself in the path of a serial murderer, and as the only one who can identify the FBI’s Silver Fox Killer, she’s ended up in the hospital with a target on her back.
All that stands between her and death is Special Agent Sam Turner. Against his better judgment, Sam gets emotionally involved, determined to take down the double threat against Elizabeth—an ex desperate to get her back, despite a restraining order, and a psychopath bent on silencing her before she can identify him. They set a trap to catch the killer—putting Elizabeth in his hands, with Sam desperate to save her. If he’s lucky, he’ll get his man … and the girl.
Having just finished reading Book 1 in this series, I was delighted to find that Book 2 had been released and available for review. Yippee! Such a good series, and one that takes the concept of being “hunted” in another direction, one that involves a witness that can finally unmask a serial killer who has successfully managed to baffle law enforcement to the extent that they hadn’t a clue as to his identity. Now they have someone who can break the case, but in the process the witness herself may be broken.
Add in a “broken” FBI agent who does everything right on a stake-out, one calculated to catch the very same serial killer. In the process he nearly loses his own life. He also carries the burden of knowing that in helping him Elizabeth has put her own life in serious danger. He is so close to the lasting effects of “burn-out” in the first place. Being an undercover agent has wounded his spirit and infected his soul with the evils of a world whose “under belly” most people never experience. We expect our law enforcement people to experience that on our behalf. But doing so takes a terrible toll on people of honor like Sam Turner. Sam’s family–his twin Jack and his family, his sister and her family–have been pressuring him to either leave the FBI or take an extended leave of absence. Now Sam really has no choice as his time of recovery means that he is put on inactive duty.
This is a tense and involved novel from a writer who really knows how to write this kind of stuff. She has given us some really fine fiction in the past and she doesn’t disappoint here either. It is a book that is well constructed with a find sense of having the plot and story line well in hand as the novel progresses. She keeps the relationships balanced and the tension between the inner struggles and the external interaction never gets out of hand. (I really hate internal monologues that go on for pages and pages!) Most of all the reader gets a very clear sense of the deep hurts within Sam, the kind of deep need to reclaim that sense of the good in himself, to keep a balance in his thinking so that he doesn’t take responsibility for stuff that isn’t his to claim. Elizabeth is one of those women who is intelligent and talented, whose life is filled with family and friends, whose judgment about people is usually “right on” and whose insight into others doesn’t fail her very often. Her open heart, her giving spirit are characteristics that believable to Sam on the surface but very hard to accept when they also want to help him let himself “off the hook.” Their love story is fraught with ups and downs that smack of the kind that plague very normal people, the stuff of ordinary human living. I am sure that some readers may get a bit impatient with Sam for his rather extended and slow recovery. But for us who have either experienced “burn out” ourselves or have lived with spouses or family/friends who have gone through that terrible time in their lives, Sam’s experience is not extraordinary.
So I think this is the kind of book that Ryan fans will love, that those of us who like romance mixed with suspense will “eat up,” and is just an energetic kind of novel that keeps readers glued to the page from the get-go.
I happily give it a rating of 4.25 out of 5.
The Series:
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This book is available from Avon Impulse. You can buy it here or here in e-format. This book was provided by the publisher for an honest review.
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