Ron and Valerie Granger seem to have the ideal life in their sleepy town of Park City. Their precocious daughter Leecy is growing up and they are involved members both in their community and Valerie’s family’s contracting business. But, from page one of this thriller, the thread starts to unravel on the couple’s chance to live a normal life and hide their CIA and Mossad pasts. The book starts with a home invasion which, it soon becomes clear, was targeted at the Grangers. Somebody wanted information or to erase them entirely. Add some questionable federal agents and the revealing to Leecy of her parents’ shady pasts, and you have a non-stop thrill ride.
This book plays out like a film, with flashbacks and copious amounts of backstory explaining various parts of Ron and Valerie’s pasts, including relatives generations ago who were on the ground floor of worldwide espionage. Leecy proves to be the perfect avatar for the reader, as we get the joy of learning all of these secrets about the Grangers and finding out what part of their past is coming back to haunt them.
BLOOD LINE sails by with humor and speedy action, with two minor hiccups, the first being the aforementioned Leecy. Readers looking for honesty and realism in their thrillers should be prepared for a character that acts like no other teenager in literature, if not the planet. She’s painted as a character we want to read as opposed to a real portrayal of a character and, while it certainly adds to and fits in with the tone of the story, it distracts at times that she is painted as a teen but doesn’t act like one.
The second minor detractor is the somewhat dense backstories of the characters. We get treated to chapters-long histories of the women in Valerie’s family and all of their travails during the World Wars. But, all of this takes place while the family is in the middle of running away from possibly corrupt federal agents who are threatening their very existence. While it all helps to inform Leecy on her mother’s true nature, it seems to drag on a hair too long.
BLOOD LINE is a fantastic piece of fun that hits the ground running and leaves you waiting for the next installment, which is planned for the spring of 2015.
~ IndieReader.