"Life Flight" by Lynette Eason

Life Flight (Jan. 4, 2022) by Lynette Eason.*

*This is the first novel in a series.*

As an EMS helicopter pilot, Penny Carlton is used to high-stress environments, so she will go rescue a critical patient during a furious storm. The situation becomes immensely stressful when she’s got to make an emergency landing on the mountain, travel in the raging thunderstorm to find a working phone (there’s no satellite phone because their new boss cuts corners), and learns that there’s a serial killer on the loose on the same mountain. Her nerves will be stretched to the limit, not only because it gets leaked to the media that her mom is famous actress Geneva Queen and not simply due to a very persistent reporter (Frankie Olander) following (stalking) her, but because the killer who died on the mountain turns out to be a very good lookalike thanks to plastic surgery. Who is that man? And where is Darius Rabor? They’ve gotta find him, for his next target looks to be Penny.

            Penny won’t be alone, as she has her friends on the EMS team. Most significantly, she has FBI Special Agent Holt Satterfield. He’s got a bad history with Rabor with a scar to prove it. He’d like to be more than friends with Penny and pushes her to share more of her personal life. He’s offended that Penny never once told him who her famous mother is, yet has the audacity to keep his own family stuff close to the vest. Can a relationship beyond friendship get off the ground? Or will it cascade like an angry rockslide down a mountain?

            One of my go-to authors for inspirational suspense, this book did not disappoint. The characters are vivid, especially the lookalike antagonists. Her skill at making them so creepy and evil as the characters themselves act confident, superior and right in their beliefs is impressive. Eason is accomplished at taking her plot one direction and then making a sharp 90-degree turn, so the reader is never bored with the same, expected plot. I don’t have much patience for romance – and will say I wouldn’t be so quick to overlook Holt’s reluctance to disclose personal stories when he pushed so hard for me to divulge my own – but I can admire the ease with which Eason can weave romance and suspense so seemingly effortlessly. This first in the Extreme Measures series is off to a high-velocity start!

 

* Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from Revell Books. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions are expressly my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”