Driven

November 1, 2020
An ex-FBI agent hunts for the serial killer who murdered his sister and is targeting his team. Angus Force was one of the FBI's best profilers, but the search for serial killer Henry Wayne Lassiter ended his career. A year earlier, Angus shot and supposedly killed Lassiter; but Angus was convinced the killer survived. He resigned from the FBI, drinking and obsessively going over the case for missing clues. Then the Homeland Defense Department made a deal with Angus to keep him quiet: They assigned him a team of misfit agents and gave him one year to search for Lassiter. Nari Zhang is the psychologist assigned by Homeland Defense to monitor the mental health and readiness of Angus' team. She and Angus have been fighting their mutual attraction for each other, and she worries about Angus professionally and personally. He is too stubborn to accept individual help from her even though he sees the ways she benefits his team. As the year draws to a close, a series of dead bodies matching Lassiter's M.O. appear, and they all resemble the women on Angus' team. The threat is clear: Lassiter is coming for them. Although this is the fourth book in a series, the plot is well executed and is accessible to new or returning readers. The sexy, emotionally charged relationship between Nari and Angus is appealing and well developed. Longtime readers will be pleased to see glimpses of couples from previous books reappear as the team fights Lassiter. Zanetti is a master of romantic suspense, effortlessly combining strong central romances and dramatic, action-filled stories. The series ends with a strong, pleasing finish for a couple that's been waiting in the wings.

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January 11, 2021
Zanetti’s action-packed fourth Deep Ops romance (after Broken) ratchets up the heat while tackling a series-long mystery. For years, Angus Force, leader of the Deep Ops team, has been hunting Lassiter, the serial killer he once left for dead, convinced the man is still alive. Nari Zhang is the talented psychologist assigned to Angus’s rag-tag unit of misfits. Her job is to take care of the team’s mental health—but her presence keeps Angus on edge. When bodies begin showing up following Lassiter’s m.o., Angus and Nari dive into the investigation and grow closer in the process—only to be shut down by the government. Though the eventual sex scenes are steamy, the focus is more on the suspense than on Nari and Angus’s romance. But Zanetti still makes time to dig into her characters’ psyches in the midst of the action, adding nuance to the exciting plot. Readers who have enjoyed the series will be pleased to delve deeper into the Lassiter mystery, and newcomers will be just as satisfied. Agent: Caitlin Blasdell, Eliza Dawson Assoc.