A fun addition to the Nadia collection. Every character you miss from the series is there, and we get a bit of how Jack things, although thankfully written as 3rd person because Jack in 1st person is probably not a splendid read. This story is a 3.5 or so for me but I will admit I knocked it down to a 3 because this series is always a little too heavy on the romance tropes for me. Specifically, in this case, people who have lost so much blood and hit their heads so hard that they have fallen unconscious do not pop back up within 15 minutes of the cavalry charging in and they especially do not want to have sex and eat candy. Eye roll worthy. Yup, I'm delighted that Jack and Nadia have a fun, sexy relationship, but c'mon. A tiny bit of realism wouldn't kill them. ( )

Armstrong's Jack-and-Nadia books are among those of which the chief complaint is always going to be "I wanted it to be longer". Not because there's anything inherently wrong with it - this one is exactly as long as it needs to be for the amount of story it contains - but because, like chocolate, more is always better.

Jack is in Ireland when Nadia gets a call - and it transpires that somebody is using Nadia to get to Jack.

One of the things I love about these characters is that they are sensible. It's not that they don't make mistakes - they do - but they don't tend to make stupid, careless mistakes that make the reader want to grab them by the throat and shake some sense into them. This is because Armstrong is a good enough author that she doesn't have to rely on her characters' stupidity to create a plot: she can (and does) come up with something so devious that even Jack and Nadia will get sucked into it.

There is violence. There is shooting. There is mayhem. This is expected.

There is also two people solidifying a relationship, and learning that being a couple means that you're in it together, for better or for worse, and that's a good thing. :-) ( )

One of my favorite series ever is the Nadia Stafford series by Kelley Armstrong: Exit Strategy, Made to Be Broken,, and Wild Justice, featuring an ex-cop who turned hit-woman to help finance her wilderness retreat lodge in the Ontario region. But I was convinced Armstrong was done with the series. How happy I was to find she decided to add to the trilogy, even if this new book is only novella-length.

At the end of the original trilogy, Nadia and Jack, her sexy, somber, and secretive mentor, finally got together and decided to build a life together.

As this novella begins, Jack is in Ireland at the behest of his first mentor, Cillian, who is now calling in a favor. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, so to speak, Nadia is approached by Diaz, a member of “Contrapasso Fellowship,” a secret vigilante organization of law enforcement officers, lawyers and judges. Diaz tells her that Quinn - her former boyfriend - has been kidnapped, and asks for her help, to which she readily agrees. Jack finds out from Cillian that this is a trap to kidnap Nadia in order to blackmail Jack into doing a high-level job.

Jack zooms back to Virginia, where Nadia has gone in search of Quinn. With the help of Jack’s colleague Evelyn and their tech consultant, everybody is found, but not everybody is safe; in fact, far from it. And they still can’t figure out who is pulling the strings.

Jack is now 51, but that doesn’t make him any less magnetic, passionate, and sexually irresistible. But “using his words” is not something he does easily; he has still not told Nadia how he feels about her. Will he even get the chance?

Evaluation: This isn’t the best of the series, but I didn’t even care. I love the story line, I love the characters, and I love the relationship dynamics. Fans of Kelley Armstrong will be so happy she brought back Nadia and Jack! And once again, as with her third book in the series, it would be hard to improve upon her ending. ( )