Acceptable Risk

June 22, 2020
Eason (Collateral Damage) concludes the Danger Never Sleeps series with this excellent military thriller. When Army journalist Sarah Denning is kidnapped in Kabul with 13 other women, it appears their captors intend to make them Taliban wives. Sarah’s father, Lt. Gen. Lewis Denning, receives the SOS Sarah manages to get out on her satellite phone and deploys former Army Ranger (and Sarah’s one-time crush) Gavin Black and his black ops team to extract her. Sarah is freed but injured during the operation, and after having PTSD-related nightmares, her father has her medically discharged from the Army. Unbeknownst to Sarah, her father also employs Gavin to provide security for her. Then they get word Dustin, the youngest Denning sibling, has committed suicide. Gavin, Sarah, and her older brother, Caden, an FBI agent, begin to piece together connections between military personnel with PTSD attempting suicide at a much higher than usual rate, linking the deaths to a single VA hospital. Though faith elements are slim, Eason’s blend of intrigue, betrayal, greed, and power creates a fast-paced narrative that holds tight until the very end. This is Eason’s most entertaining, suspense-filled drama yet.

July 1, 2020
Prepare yourself for a wild ride in Eason's second novel in the Danger Never Sleeps series, following Collateral Damage (2019). Sarah Denning is kidnapped along with a group of female students and their teacher from their school in Afghanistan. Gavin Black, an Army Ranger turned contractor, is sent by Sarah's father, a general, to rescue them. When Sarah wakes up in a military hospital, she learns that her father has pulled some strings to get her discharged from the army for PTSD and that her brother, Dustin, is dead of an apparent suicide. Returning to the U.S. to recover, she plans to use her skills as an investigative journalist to sleuth out what really happened to her brother. Gavin is hired by Sarah's overbearing father to be her bodyguard. Readers will be kept on the edge of their seats when Sarah and Gavin uncover other recent military suicides linked to Dustin. Sarah and Gavin fall for each other, but their secrets may interfere. For inspirational romantic suspense fans who enjoy books by Susan May Warren, Dani Petrey, and Elizabeth Goddard.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)