Young CIA officer Talia Inger has reconciled with the man who assassinated her father, but that doesn’t mean she wants him hovering over her every move and unearthing the painful past she’s trying to put behind her. Still, she’ll need him–and the help of his star grifter, Valkyrie–if she hopes to infiltrate the Jungle, the first ever crowdsourced crime syndicate, to rescue a group of kidnapped refugee children.
But as Talia and her elite team of thieves con their way into the heart of the Jungle, inching ever closer to syndicate boss the White Lion, she’ll run right up against the ragged edge of her family’s dark past. In this game of cat and mouse, it’s win . . . or die. And in times like that, it’s always good to have someone watching your back.
Former tactical deception officer and stealth pilot James Hannibal takes you deep undercover into the criminal underworld where everyone has an angle, and no one escapes unscathed.
I don’t like to read the synopsis or blurb before I review a book because I don’t want them to color my opinions at all. So when I picked up this copy of Chasing the White Lion by James R. Hannibal I immediately thought, “Ah, a thriller.” What tipped me off? The first thing was the font choice with distress on the stark white letters. The second thing was the city backdrop with glowing red lights that takes up the bottom third of the cover. And lastly, the lion emblem that is sort of cloaked in a smoky black and red backdrop across the top. It is a gorgeous cover that doesn’t even begin to hint at the exciting story that it contains.
Within the first few paragraphs, I already knew that Talia Inger was someone that I wanted to be like when I grow up. She’s cool, collected, and brilliant for starters; a certified badass when the bullets start flying. But it’s her interactions with her ragtag Oceans 11-esque team that really did something for me. It takes a heck of a person to not only forgive the man who killed your father, and quite another to be friends with said person and trust them with your life. While Talia is the central character and thus fleshed out more completely than the others, the reader is still able to explore the depths of the book’s secondary characters; specifically Tyler, Finn, and Valkyrie.
With the book starting off in Russia, I was surprised when the story jumped over to Thailand in chapter three. Following two small children as they chase a butterfly through the foliage is the calm before the storm – men in military garb are not usually a good sign when you’re in the third world. Particularly, if these men are militias not soldiers. As their storyline progressed via alternating chapters of Talia’s journey, it dawned on me that this book was heading into human trafficking territory and it made my stomach hurt.
Hannibal does a wonderful job of storytelling without gratuitous details. To be honest, I thought I needed it when it came to the action sequences. But as I read on, I realized that I got more from the planning sessions and the need for improvisation when a plan goes awry than my need to know how far the blood sprayed across the room. Perhaps the lack of gore had more to do with the Contemporary Christian label than anything else. At any rate, it gave me a deeper appreciation for the technical aspect of a good thriller book.
Buy this book so that you can help Compassion International. (I love that they are real and doing amazing work!) Read this book because you want to immerse yourself in an exciting and complex story. Share this book with people who love movies like the Oceans and Mission Impossible series, or TV shows like Burn Notice.
Former stealth pilot James R. Hannibal is a two-time Silver Falchion Award winner for his Section 13 mysteries for kids and a Thriller Award nominee for his Nick Baron covert ops series for adults. James is a rare multi-sense synesthete, meaning all of his senses intersect. He sees and feels sounds and smells and hears flashes of light. He lives in Houston, Texas.
+ Bookstore Candle + $10 Starbucks Gift Card;
SECOND PRIZE: Copy of Both Books in the Talia Inger Series
+ $20 Barnes and Noble Gift Card;
THIRD PRIZE: Copy of Both Books in the Talia Inger Series + $10 Starbucks Gift Card
March 3-13, 2020
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