Deadly Encounter by DiAnn Mills

Deadly Encounter
(FBI Task Force #1)
by DiAnn Mills

---

 

~ MY REVIEW ~

“Stubborn Cajun meets stubborn Cajun.  Will they get together or drown each other in the bayou?”  ~ Ric 

Well.  This was an intriguing read, for sure!  It dives right in with a dead body discovered in the first few pages.  No surprise there– it is a suspense novel, after all.  But then it gets interesting.  Terrorism, water contamination, attacks, a flu outbreak, scams, abuse, a custody case, biological warfare…..  *deep breath*  Did I miss anything?  I’m sure I did.

This wasn’t a super fast-paced read for me, like a lot of suspense novels are, but the slower, steady pace didn’t in any way detract from the story.  I never considered putting the book away (perhaps putting it on hold so I could read Lynette Eason’s newest book that I had been waiting for ever to read… but not putting it away for good 😉 ).

I enjoyed learning about the Airport Rangers.  I had never heard of this program before so hearing about them in this book prompted me to look into it further.  I love it when I can learn about something new while enjoying my fiction addiction! 😀
News Flash: reading books may teach you about things you didn’t know! 😛

Sometimes I have a difficult time picking a favorite character.  And I often dislike child characters because it seems that many authors have a difficult time portraying them correctly or… I don’t know how to say this except– in an appealing way?  That sounds kinda silly, but I hope y’all know what I mean by that.  However, in this book, my favorite character was the child.  Whitt is just fantastic!  He’s so smart– brilliant, really!– but he has some very deep emotional and spiritual struggles that drew me to him in a big way.  I’m not quite sure how the author pulled this off, but kudos to her for creating a brilliant child character that I quickly grew to adore.  Had me wishing I could meet him and just give him a huge hug!  I think his story was my favorite part of this book.

Stacy and Alex are both great characters too, of course. They really (I mean really) don’t like each other at first… and it was fun to see their friendship grow.  And I really liked Ric (I’m sure you noticed the quote from him at the beginning of this review 😉 ) and Dexter too.  But none of them stuck with me quite like Whitt did…

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I love when an author can keep me guessing the who-done-it late into the story.  DiAnn Mills succeeded with this book!  For a while, I didn’t even really have any true suspects.  Early in the story I would quickly discount any suspicions I had because I kept feeling like there was going to be a lot more to the outcome and I didn’t want to settle on anyone as the “bad guy”.  The reveal, as I’ll call it, was both interesting and sad.  I didn’t see it coming for a long time, but once I saw it, it made complete sense.

Obviously, I liked this book.  I’m glad I own it because I think I’ll likely want to revisit it someday.  Don’t be discouraged if you find it a bit slow at first!  If you like suspense, give it a shot– I think you’ll like it. 🙂

 

---

 

~ WHAT SOME OF MY FRIENDS ARE SAYING ABOUT THIS BOOK ~

 DiAnn Mills has provided a whodunit that will keep the most avid mystery reader engaged until the end.  Read more…
~ Vera

This book was totally unique, I’ve never read anything like it before and I love that!  Read more…
~ Caitlyn

It seems each Mills book is harder to guess than the one before it. I didn’t decide on the murderer until within the last 50 pages.  Read more…
~ Hannah

 

---

 

Check out the entire FBI Task Force series!