I’m a bit on the fence about this book. On one hand, I found it a little slow to start. Sure, the main couple of this book Elle and Nick were sizzling hot when they were together. But – that blasted little thing called communication, or rather, the lack of communication got in the way of their happily ever after. During this first third of the book, I actually double checked the book to make sure that it was in fact a Ghost Ops book. Fast forward to ten years later. Yes, the book does a ten year jump to the future. Elle has moved on to bigger and better things and is now a scientist for Arka Pharmaceuticals. Elle is doing some pretty nifty research on the brain but when her colleague Sophie calls to warn her of imminent danger, Elle blasts a telepathic message to Nick for help. Nick drops everything to find Elle. This is where the story picks up for me. You see, Nick is a now a member of the Ghost Ops team. He and his fellow operatives live in an off the grid community inside a mountain. Finally, we get to see the inside of the mountain which kind of reminded me of those James Bond movies where the villains have mountains or volcanoes full of people working on some sort of military project. I loved the premise of Ghost Ops, how the team members are able to obtain highly classified items, hack into any network or satellite, and how they were completely self-sufficient. I loved the camaraderie among the residents and of course, the big alpha male characters. A word about Nick and Elle – these two are not in a perfect relationship. Elle harbors a lot of anger and resentment towards Nick. Nick is extremely possessive of Elle, not allowing anyone to care for her. The alpha caveman impulses abound. The villain of this book Dr. Charles Lee was bent on making a name for himself for China by creating an army of super soldiers. His methods fell outside of normal protocols and he did not hesitate to experiment on human subjects. Dr. Lee was cold, calculating, and ruthless. Unfortunately, his character kind of fizzled out for me. I think that the last third of this book did it for me. This was the action packed Ghost Ops book that I had been waiting for. I’m not ready to give up on this series just yet and I am hoping that the next book – Jon and Sophie’s story – will pick up. Thank you to Edelweiss and Avon for a review copy of this book.Review posted at Badass Book Reviews.
