Book Review: "An Eye for An Eye" by Irene Hannon

After he accidentally shoots a teenager at a tense standoff, FBI Hostage Rescue Team member Mark Sanders is sent to St. Louis to work as a field agent and get his bearings while the bad press starts to settle. Just weeks away from returning to Quantico to resume his work on the HRT, Mark has a chance encounter with an old flame, Emily Lawson. But their reunion is cut short by a sniper. Now Mark must find the shooter before he tries to strike again. But what is his motive--and who was his intended target? Can Mark put the pieces together, keep Emily safe, and rekindle a long-dead relationship at the same time?

Irene Hannon is back with the second installment in her Heroes of Quantico series. Once again I felt really drawn into the story and imagined that I was part of the action. There's a great deal of suspense and it's extremely realistic the way the plot folds out. Mark and Emily have great chemistry together and I enjoyed seeing them reunite and rebuild that old flame. While this book is the second in the series, there's so much to just this story alone that it can be read as a stand alone. I think that these stories would be great as a TV show. The characters have wonderful depth with wonderful chemistry, the action and suspense sequences are fast paced and realistic and the storyline as a whole is tight and well written.

While I enjoyed this book very much, I actually preferred the first book to this one. This was purely because I had enjoyed the international setting and the ripped from the headlines storyline from the first book. Also I felt that there was a bit more romance than suspense in this book, unlike the first one. One thing I did especially like was the fact that Mark and Emily have a history together. I get tired of reading romantic suspense books where the two leads meet for the first time in the beginning of the book and by the end of the story, they are practically engaged, even though they have known each other for only two months. This relationship however is more realistic as they already know each other and are reuniting. For some reason, I've always enjoyed reading stories about people who are against any form of psychology or therapy because they believe it is evil and not of God. It just really baffles me how people think this, so books like this always are interesting to read as they try to put a spin on things.

This is a fantastic series and I'm really impressed with the writing and the suspense sequences. I didn't even know the Hostage Rescue Team existed before this series so I'm really glad there is so much detail about them here. The research again in this book is outstanding and it makes the story authentic and realistic. As I've said before, I believe this is the best romantic suspense series I have ever read. I will be looking forward to when the third book comes out.

An Eye for An Eye by Irene Hannon is published by Revell (2009)