This is one of my all time favorite books, and I have re-read it probably 20 times easily. I REALLY love this series, and the characters are recurring, so you get to know them. This book, Max's book, was something I was dying for, and SB didn't let me down! While some parts of the book are very hard to read, the story is amazing! Loved it!

This is the third time I have read this book, which makes it even more impressive that I STILL couldn't put it down, even though I knew what was going to happen.

This author has way of writing dialogue that makes her characters seem more real than actual people, in some ways. The pacing on this book is done very well, so that as soon as the tension from one crisis releases, another arises. She uses different time periods in the story put together in such a way that telling one story out of order provides tension for the first half of the book, and then the meat of the conflict (which is pretty meaty indeed) provides tension for the second half. At one point I thought I had reached the crisis scene of the book but there was still another hundred pages.

This author writes great suspense because she understands something that I wish Hollywood movie makers did: suspense can't be done for its own sake. The best written suspense scene is useless without emotional connections (between characters and reader and characters and each other) to sharpen it and give it depth.

Having said that, I'm interested in how she played Gina, a main character, as having worked through her trauma and gotten over it for the most part. I think that was perhaps an unconventional way to do it, but I think its almost a little too easy for the character. Because really, who endures a brutal rape at the hand of terrorists and a few years later has no sexual hangups whatsoever? Probably not so many people.

I'm going to stop trying to pick which one of these books is my favorite... They're all wonderful! So nice to have these two couples getting their HEA!

4/1/2011 reread 9/8/17 ; 10/29/2020

Have reread this several times, only trackable dates above. So over the top but I just love Gina and Max.

This is the resolution of the Max & Gina and Molly & Jones romances. Gina, in a stroke of amazingly bad luck, is kidnapped with Molly (after being the victim of a hijacking in an earlier book). Perhaps if I hadn't read all the prior books I wouldn't be rolling my eyes at the tidy arrangement of events that allow Brockmann to tie up the love story of Gina & Max. Max and Gina had always been an interesting back story but they didn't have to have their own book - or even come together permanently - for it to remain interesting. And to be honest, Jones & Molly (or Grady or Leslie or whatever his name du jour was) were more interesting when they were unrequited love. I love a happy ending, but we've been following these Troubleshooters for a long, long time. It's ok if not everything gets tied up with a neat little bow. That said, I like Brockmann's general style, her characters have some depth (though she definitely wasn't true to Max's character in this book) and she creates a good military suspense story every time. Enjoyable enough, not my favorite, not her best.

I liked this book for the international backdrop. The love story didn't hold me in complete thrall like some of Brockman's other stories, but it was good enough to keep me turning the pages!

I gave it one star not becuase it was bad necessarily, but because I didn't want to finish it. I didn't care all that much for the characters, and I felt that the fact that the relationship between all the characters was already established and had no where to go was not very fun.

She's still a great writer, I just... didn't care about this one.

The flipping back and forth during time was a bit annoying, but I really liked this story. Other then the fact that I find it a little weird that the hostage negotiator's girl kept getting kidnapped. I was so glad to see Molly and Jones again. For some reason I really loved their story. I was so glad that they finally got their HEA. This book also made me love Jules that much more. I think he is one of the best characters in this entire series. This book did leave a lot of stuff hanging, but I'm guessing that it will all get sorted out in the next ones.

This was my second book in this series, I have already read [b:The Unsung Hero|154016|The Unsung Hero (Troubleshooters, #1)|Suzanne Brockmann|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1266484090s/154016.jpg|2501611] which I liked better than this one.

The beginning of this book was driving me crazy and not in a good way. It was mainly written in retrospections! I generally don't mind some flashbacks on characters or how that all started but man… When I read a book I want the story and not jumping from one previous event in the heroes life to the another. And what bothered me even more it was just jumping from one to the other - nineteen years ago, two months ago, then two years ago and twenty two months ago, than again two months ago and so on. At 25% of the book there are only three minor parts set in present times. And all that is mostly useless because after the first retrospection I already get that Gina and Max has some past together and what they think about this situation. I don't need another hundred pages about the past events to understand that.

Also, I don't think I liked Gina. She is one of those bitches who always knows better and are ready to tell you their opinion whatever you want it or not. She always has to have the last word in every conversation. And, of course, she knows better what will be good for Max. She makes him into some therapy for couples because she thinks he needs it, she helps in the hospital in Kenya even though she can't stand blood so she is useless, when Max is hurt she decides it's a perfect moment to tell him about her feelings and what he should do about them. And so on. Yep, she is annoying.

The romance part is definitely undeveloped. It's probably because of this huge retrospection part. But rather than that I would like to see how Gina and Max explain everything between them and built their relationship once again. Instead they overcome everything instantly and go for a happy ending. I was a bit disappointed.

Till now Jules seems to be the most interesting character in this book. I wish he has his own story.

I'm rating this book 2.5.

I absolutely loved this one--one of the best since the first book, I thought, which is surprising since absolutely no one from Team Sixteen even shows up in it! (And it was okay, it really was--Jules and Max and Jones more than made up for it...plus, there's a teeny little Alyssa cameo. Sam is apparently there as well, but we don't see him, alas.)

I didn't at all have a problem with the back and forth time shifts on this one, because I thought it worked well for the story. There's certain things that we wouldn't have wanted to know earlier than we did, so to me the way it was written made sense. The dual narrators did a good job, and I'm finally getting used to the way they pronounce Max's last name (because it's totally different than the way the earlier narrator used to do it).

Max and Gina's--and Jones and Molly's--stories were totally worth the wait. Just angsty enough, and with action and drama and emotional roller-coastering a-plenty to make me look for excuses to keep listening. Jules was absolutely phenomenal. His line to Max--"Recovering from a gunshot wound is not a vacation. You need to write that, like, on your hand or something." Classic. Just classic.