Reviewed by Karen Chisholm
In charge of all three Delta teams and still in the field with Delta A while juggling twin toddlers, Special Agent in Charge Ellie Iverson tackles life, cases, and endless meetings with arrant determination and sometimes with her growing psycho-prophetic skill set.
Approached by a police officer in Missouri for help with two, seemingly unrelated, missing family cases, SAC Iverson agrees to offer assistance. That event cued a series of cryptic text messages, an added twist to an unfolding situation with a long reach and unsettling ramifications.
Before Ellie could take a breath an old friend approached her with a gripping dilemma that snowballs into two overlapping occurrences.
When everything collides Ellie is left reeling at the length in which people will go to get what they want.
This review comes with what is now the standard warning, this really is a series that needs to be read in order. There's a lot going on with Special Agent Ellie Iverson and it always feels like the backstory helps enormously when keeping everything that is happening sorted out.
In short, SAC Iverson works for a special unit within the FBI - known as Delta teams. There are multiple Delta teams out there, and Iverson is now in charge of three of them, but still working in the field with Delta A - a group of officers that she knows and has cared about for a long time now. Whilst juggling twin toddlers, and a growing psycho-prophetic ability.
In CRYTOBYTE (book 11 of the series), they are approached by a police officer in Missouri looking for help with two, up until now, unrelated missing family cases, where these entire families have just vanished, after a series of cryptic text messages.
This whole series is high action, event driven thriller fiction, with a strong female lead, albeit with that slight paranormal element that may or may not work for some readers. They are set in increasingly different case types, spread throughout America, and in the most recent books, there is the complication of family responsibilities as well. The strongest part of the series is undoubtedly the interactions between all the characters - which has always felt more "New Zealand / Australian" humoured than American to this reader, but it works, and is frequently laugh out loud funny. Things can get a bit ropey plot wise at points, but the point of this series has always felt like the action, the dare doing's and those character interactions.
Definitely one for anybody looking for high-octane thrillers with some paranormal elements, and a kick arse, do everything central female central character.
Karen Chisholm is one of Australia's leading crime reviewers. She created Aust Crime Fiction in 2006, a terrific resource - please check it out. Karen also reviews for Newtown Review of Books, and is a Judge of the Ngaio Marsh Award for Best Novel. She kindly shares her reviews of crime and thriller novels written by New Zealanders on Crime Watch as well as on Aust Crime Fiction.
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