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3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
When Lightning Strikes, September 18, 2002
Aimee Thurlo returns after a two-year absence with her 20th Intrigue (not the 19th as the list on the author page states) to reveal what happens "When Lightning Strikes." Daniel "Lightning" Eagle is an investigator for the top secret Gray Wolf Pack agency. Hired by the uncle of a missing woman to find her, he has no trouble locating the frightened woman. But nothing he was told prepares him for Hannah Jones. It doesn't take him long to figure out there's more to the case than he was led to believe, and Hannah is in real danger. "When Lightning Strikes" is an okay book. It gets off to a wonderful beginning, and for the first few chapters I was so glad to have Thurlo back writing for Intrigue, positive I had a five-star read in my hands. The opening is gritty and interesting, and the first chapter immediately pulled me in with its presentation of Daniel and the secret agency. The story gets off to a fast start, with events happening at a good clip. After a while, though, I started to lose interest. I began to realize that both a lot and very little was happening in this book. I like stories where one event leads to another to keep the story momentum going, or at least where every scene seems vital to the plot. Here, it felt like Daniel and Hannah were going around and around in circles, doing a great deal but accomplishing very little. I think the problem is that while "When Lightning Strikes" is a longer book than most Intrigues today, the plot isn't that complicated. There aren't very many characters and it's easy to see how the story will end and what they'll figure out. The big revelations in the end are no surprise. It didn't need to take the characters nearly as long as it did to put everything together. For most of the book it felt like they were treading water, and some of the incidents in the middle of the story could have been cut without anything being lost. It probably would have tightened the story and made it better. Instead this is a book where the destination is visible and we're left wondering what's taking them so long to get there. There also isn't much of a romance. It's one of those books where the couple falls into bed early on, then decides they can't have a relationship until the mystery is solved, and spends the rest of the book focusing on that. There's no real sense that they're falling in love over the course of the story. Despite a great beginning, "When Lightning Strikes" is a too simple storyline stretched out longer than it needed to be. I like Aimee Thurlo's writing style and am glad that she's writing for Intrigue again. I didn't really care for this story. I'm hopeful the next Gray Wolf Pack book, "Navajo Justice," will be better.
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by Aimee Thurlo
by Aimee Thurlo
