Free Fall

January 14, 2013
Mann spins a tense and dramatic sequel to 2011’s Hot Zone. Interpol agent Stella Carson instantly clicks with Air Force pararescueman Jose “Cuervo” James on an antipiracy mission in Africa, but their sizzling affair is brief: Stella wants the white picket fence and kids, and Jose is too afraid of re-creating his own troubled upbringing. A month after the breakup, they reunite when Jose helps rescue Stella and several other hostages from kidnappers and leads a jungle trek to safety. Jose and Stella still feel the heat, but relationship decisions will have to wait until after they stop a terrorist attack. Multiple plots and personal complications for the characters keep the action moving, and even Stella’s code-breaking desk work is given an exciting glow. The sex is scant and the ending far too pat, but the chemistry is strong, the prose is tight, and the story never stops moving. Agent: Barbara Collins Rosenberg, the Rosenberg Group.

March 15, 2013
In this fourth book in her Elite Force series, Mann pairs Stella Cameron, a field operative for Interpol, with Jose Cuervo James, a pararescueman whom she first meets in a sea-pickup operation involving Somali pirates. Six months later, they meet again in East Africa, where she is searching for information about her mother, after she has ended their passionate affair because of his unwavering decision never to have children because of his family's alcoholism. At this point, she has been taken hostage on a job while posing as an American student, and he is part of the group rescuing her. As they work their way toward a compromise so they can be together again, they confront a plot to kill the U.S. vice-president's wife on a goodwill tour, and Stella is in for a big surprise. Mann's novel of romantic suspense has everything she's known forcompetent and engaging protagonists, a solid military background, great sex and sexual tension, several suspenseful subplots, and a ripped-from-the-headlines immediacy.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)