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Into the Fire (Troubleshooters, Book 13)
written by Suzanne Brockmann
Studio : Ballantine Books
by Ballantine Books
Release Date : 2008-07-22
Publisher : Ballantine Books
Released : 2008-07-22
Availability : Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Number of Items : 1
EAN : 9780345501530
Avg. Customer Rating: (based on 51 reviews)
List Price : $25.00
Our Price : $10.07
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Product Description |
Suspense doesn’t burn any brighter and desire doesn’t run any deeper than when Suzanne Brockmann takes the helm, opens the throttle, and takes readers along for a breathless ride as she breaks the thrill barrier–again and again. With Into the Fire, Brockmann lights the fuse on her most explosive story yet.
Vinh Murphy–ex-Marine and onetime operative for the elite security firm Troubleshooters Incorporated–has been MIA ever since his wife, Angelina, was caught in a crossfire and killed during what should have been a routine bodyguard assignment. Overcome with grief, Murphy blames the neo-Nazi group known as the Freedom Network for her death. Now, years later, Freedom Network leader Tim Ebersole has been murdered–and the FBI suspects Murphy may have pulled the trigger. To prevent further bloodshed, Murphy’s friends at Troubleshooters scramble to find him and convince him to surrender peacefully.
Murphy himself can’t be sure what he did or didn’t do during the years he spent mourning and lost in an alcohol-induced fog. He does know he occasionally sought solace from Hannah Whitfield, a former police officer and the very friend who’d introduced him to his beloved late wife.
But Hannah, still grappling with the deafness that resulted from an injury sustained while on duty, was fighting her own battles. For years Hannah had feelings for Murphy, and one painful night their suffering brought them together in a way neither expected–and both regretted.
Murphy is ready to rejoin the living. As always, he finds himself knocking on Hannah’s door, and as always, his longtime friend welcomes him back into her home. Yet even as Murphy slowly rebuilds his splintered life, he continues to fight his growing feelings for Hannah.
Then he learns of Ebersole’s murder and comes to believe that the Freedom Network has targeted him–and Hannah–to avenge their leader’s death to violence. Now Murphy must face the terrifying prospect of losing another woman he loves.
As the Troubleshooters desperately search for him, Murphy races toward a deadly confrontation with the Freedom Network and ultimate choice: surrender his life in hopes that Hannah will be spared, or risk everything to salvage whatever future they may have together. |
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Into the Fire but not into the "Best of Brockmann" |
If you've not read Brockmann before, I strongly encourage you to do so. However, don't start with INTO THE FIRE.
I am a long-time devoted fan of Ms. Brockmann's work so it pains me to say that this is not her best. Jumpy and disconnected multiple story lines combined with her trademark historical flash back approach made it difficult to get into - especially in the first part of the book. Most of her books give some time to various couples apart from but nestled within the primary h/h story. In this one, those sub-plots are given whole pieces of the book separately. The story line changed every couple of pages necessitating a font change to delineate the historical flashbacks (not an uncommon device surely but absolutely necessary for this book). Just as I was really getting into a storyline - boom - I was redirected to the next. I suspect that Ms. Brockmann was trying to line up all the scenes of each storyline so that they happened fairly concurrently in the time line. Unfortunately, all it did was give me a vague sense of disassociation - as if I never really knew where I was.
First time readers of this series may find it even more difficult as one of the things that helped me through was knowing most of the characters really well from reading (all) the previous books in this truly excellent series. I understood the background for the various trials and tribulations of each couple's sub-story. New readers of the series might find that a little confusing. Ms. Brockmann pulled all the various pieces together in the end and created a few very nice cliff-hangers to drive further entries. This is a comfort because I was getting the impression as I progressed through the book that she was cleaning up loose threads in order to end the whole TS/Seals/FBI thing. Such doesn't appear to be the case as she has already named and tentatively scheduled the next entry.
The book does however, for long time fans of this series, bring a lot of old familiar names back into play - some with speaking parts but others just as cameos. (smile) Alyssa is going grey!!
Heretofore, I would wait with panting excitement for a new Brockmann book. I can't imagine ever being sorry that I purchased one but INTO THE FIRE has caused me to feel less anticipation than I usually do for the next offering. |
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Two stars for providing a deeper glimpse of Decker... an unfocused effort otherwise |
I fell in love with Suzanne Brockmann's Troubleshooters right off the bat with The Unsung Hero (Troubleshooters, Book 1) and enjoyed reading about each new couple (or two) introduced in the subsequent books of the series up to and including Hot Target (Troubleshooters, Book 8). Since then, unfortunately, the proverbial wheels appear to have fallen off of this well-oiled machine.
With her latest effort, "Into the Fire", SB once again fails to focus on developing the relationship between the main romantic leads and chooses to leave not just one but three relationships "to be continued". I may have gotten into Hannah and Murphy's story had SB not so often shifted away from it to the myriad story lines she had going on in this book. It surprises me that SB's plotting has become so scatterbrained, considering that in the first three or four book of the series she was able to almost seamlessly weave her patented WWII-flashback, secondary romances into the main plot. She abandoned this plot device in Flashpoint (Troubleshooters, Book 7) and also in "Hot Target", both successfully, I might add, so it's not like SB needed the flashback crutch at all.
Going back to "Into The Fire", at this point it's clear (to me, at least) that SB is using the Decker/Sophia/Dave and Nash/Tess situations to string us along through the next couple of books in the series. Some may say that she did this with Alyssa and Sam back in the early books of the series, but I would disagree. In those books, the main and secondary romantic couples were the primary focus, well-developed, and got their due HEAs (happily ever afters), while Alyssa and Sam's relationship chugged along at a snail's pace, but was always firmly in the background such that you would've enjoyed the books even if their "sections" had been excluded.
In "Into the Fire", however, SB appears to be focused on maintaining not just one ongoing, longer-term, romantic arc, but three, which leaves hardly any time to devote to the main romantic couple. I found myself literally flipping through the "main" plot and reading only the Decker/Sophia/Dave and Nash/Tess sections, when it should be the other way around. However, I actually really like where SB is going with both of these situations and hope that her next book is devoted primarily to them and their resolution, with Izzy/Tracy serving as the ongoing, background romantic arc. |
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Into the fire, inedeed! |
This next Trouble Shooters novel by Suzanne Brockman is definitely action-packed! It deals with Vinh Murphy who falls apart after the death of his wife Angelina at the hands of the Neo-Nazi Freedom Network. He thinks, in a drunken stupor, he may have killed Tim Ebersole, the leader of the NFN. He's wanted by everyone, including the Trouble Shooters, and turns to Hannah, his best friend,a former cop, who was injured in the line of duty and is now deaf. Hannah loves Vinh and refuses to give up on him, and their deepening relationship is an important part of the book.
But there are sub plots a plenty and it will help immensely if you have read the previous Trouble Shooters series. Then you'll welcome Izzy Zannella and his poignant love story. And what of Decker and Dave and Sophia? As I said, it definitely helps to have read the previous books to know the inter-relationship of all these charaters. And do they all have personal issues to solve! Whew! You will feel like an exhausted Trouble Shooter yourself when you're done with this book! But if you like Brockman's books, you'll like this one, too. |
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Into the What? |
Brockmann's titles for the Troubleshooters series ceased making sense to me a while back, not to mention, they all sound a like to me. "Into the Night", "Into the Fire", "Into the Storm", "Over the Edge", "Gone Too Far"... whatever!
I had a hard time getting into this story because not only did the story lines keep changing but the time frames did as well. Very confusing... I hung with it, and things sorted themselves out, but I have to say I had to go back and check the synopsis to make sure I knew who the story was about. Yeah, it's supposed to be about Murphy since Angelina was killed, and his hooking up with Hannah, his old friend. But, I was much more drawn to the story about Izzy and Eden. And, I was glad to hear more about Tess and Nash, about whom I feel like we have read precious little since their story - just that they're still not married.
I've read some of the other reviews, and I can see where people seem to be in one of two camps: either "Max and Gina" or "Izzy and Eden". I never 'got' Max and Gina - never understood how he was so "hot", nor how their relationship wasn't totally weird. I endured their story for the sake of moving forward the stories of the whole everyone else.
I did like the story line of Izzy and Eden. I liked seeing what a great guy he could be - being the hero, but having his insecurities. It could have been the frustrating story line of constant misunderstanding, etc. Instead, they each reached out at certain moments and let it be real, and that kept me interested. I liked Eden. Yeah, she's got baggage, but she's not deluded about it and she's making the effort to come clear of it. I can't wait to read more about them, and I hope they get their HEA. To me, this was nothing like Mary Lou and Sam, which was doomed from the start. For one thing, Sam was in love with Alyssa, and another, Mary Lou very intentionally got pregnant to snag him. Totally different scenario, to me, than Izzy and Eden.
As to the story of Murphy and Hannah... It was a lot of cutting in and out of the action (also, with Brockmann shifting the story from that line to Izzy and Eden, and then to Nash and Tess, and Decker, etc, etc). I feel like the book wasn't so much about them (Murphy and Hannah) as it was about the whole group, dealing with a bunch of issues going all the way back to Kazbekistan (I giggle every time I see that name!). So, the actual storyline of Ebersole getting killed and did Murphy do it just felt so peripheral and kind of moot.
Funny, when I started writing this review I was going to give it a 4, because I liked the "Izzy and Eden" storyline and I was glad to read about Tess and Nash, and finally see Decker clear the woods of his ridiculous behavior through the last few books. But, then I realized I had a hard time finishing it and was disappointed at the end. Part of it, is I'm tired of all those loose threads that Brockmann leaves us with. I can't help feeling like some of it is just a ploy to get us to buy the next book. I like the series, but each book should stand on its own and I don't feel like this one does. Still, if you've been following the series, this book does a good job of including a lot of the old characters in a realistic (not gratuitous) way. But, as its own story, it doesn't stand well. I can only recommend this with great qualifications. |
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Into the...Tedium |
Echoing previous reviews, I'd say that while it was good to catch up with these characters and get some closure on Vinh, the story was quite disjointed, had a ridiculous amount of profanity, was low on real romantic development, and went in some yucky directions.
I'm all for therapy but did not catch on to the point of introducing the shrink character. It was 100% expected that most of the characters would resist a real connection with her. Presumably in future books we will learn why this shrink was important, but that will be too late for it to have been worth reading all about it in this book. I love a mystery but at some point, it is just downright annoying not to know why something is important when it's threaded throughout a book.
Who knows what will happen with Dave/Decker/Sophia, but the triangle and Deck's self-torture has gotten OLD. I'm hoping for Deck/Sophia, but it looks as if that's currently disfavored by the author.
One of the things I do really like about SB is her handling of real issues (homosexuality, bad childhoods, etc.), however I just did not care for the Izzy/Eden storyline. Between his foul mouth and her sad background and being JUST TOO YOUNG for a modern romance novel, I cringed through their scenes. The question of who the father of the baby is, etc., was a mess and I found myself being turned off by the whole subplot.
Unfortunately, I think this series has (perhaps inevitably) gotten to the point where the author has to recycle too much from previous installments (hence boring us), and then where she does get creative, loyal fans of the earlier books either feel "betrayed" or just not interested in how the new developments are going. |
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