Blog Tour: Meltdown

I just had a chance to read Meltdown - the third in the Task Force Valor series. I haven't read the first two in this series and this installment suffers slightly because of that. You really need to know the characters and the prior adventures they've been on in order to understand some of the banter and relationships between them. That said, you aren't completely lost in the novel without that knowledge.

This book follows CIA Agent Mary Walker as the head of the Task Force as they race the clock to find and destroy the last cache of IEB - a liquid explosive - before it can be used on American soil. Unfortunately, they are a few days behind the bad guys and their hunt quickly turns from proactive to reactive damage control and a quest to uncover who is behind the bombings raging across the United States.

In the midst of this, both Walker and Sweeney (another member of the team) begin to struggle with the meaning of life, their place in the universe and whether or not there is in fact a God who cares.

This book is well written and fast paced. In fact, if I had one complaint it would be that it's too fast paced. The scenes zip hither, thither and yon after a page (or less) and you find yourself zooming from Alabama to the Ukraine to all points in between as various pieces of the plot come together and I found myself only grasping where I was and who was involved right as the scene changed yet again. This is a bit dizzying and choppy - leaving you about half way through before you really have a good grasp on the players. (Maybe having read books 1 and 2 would fix that, I don't know.) Other than that, it's an enjoyable read and a good example of Christian fiction that isn't 1) preachy or 2) some kind of overly sappy Western-themed romance.