What do you think?
Rate this book
Tough Justice #2.4
Countdown: Part 4 of 8
Everyone has secrets. Everyone is vulnerable.
As tensions mount within the Crisis Management Unit, Special Agent Lara Grant's relationships with her fellow agents fray as they race to find a hostage taken by the bomber. But as the next high-profile target rejects the bomber's demands, it seems like nothing can save the innocent victim. A chance bit of evidence leads the CMU to a warehouse Lara knows all too well from her last case. But will they arrive in time to prevent another murder?
Part 4 of 8: an explosive new installment in the thrilling FBI serial from New York Times bestselling author Carla Cassidy and Tyler Anne Snell, Emmy Curtis and Janie Crouch.
Praise for Pushing the Limit by Emmy
"Curtis doesn't shy away from emotion...complex balance of grief and desire is deeply compelling, as is the military-grade mystery that keeps the story moving." --The Washington Post
As tensions mount within the Crisis Management Unit, Special Agent Lara Grant's relationships with her fellow agents fray as they race to find a hostage taken by the bomber. But as the next high-profile target rejects the bomber's demands, it seems like nothing can save the innocent victim. A chance bit of evidence leads the CMU to a warehouse Lara knows all too well from her last case. But will they arrive in time to prevent another murder?
Part 4 of 8: an explosive new installment in the thrilling FBI serial from New York Times bestselling author Carla Cassidy and Tyler Anne Snell, Emmy Curtis and Janie Crouch.
Praise for Pushing the Limit by Emmy
"Curtis doesn't shy away from emotion...complex balance of grief and desire is deeply compelling, as is the military-grade mystery that keeps the story moving." --The Washington Post
80 pages, Kindle Edition
First published February 1, 2017
15 people are currently reading
39 people want to read
About the author
Emmy Curtis
28Ìýbooks175ÌýfollowersEmmy Curtis is a Romance author. An ex-pat Brit, she quells her homesickness with Cadbury Flakes and Fray Bentos pies. She's lived in London, Paris and New York, and has settled for the time being, in Tokyo. When not writing, Emmy loves to travel with her military husband and take long walks with their dogs. All things considered, her life is chock full of hoot, just a little bit of nanny. And if you get that reference...well, she already considers you kin.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
March 7, 2017
This has to be my favorite episode yet! Ms. Curtis has done a wonderful job of balancing the tensions that the agents are working under while giving us readers a chance to get to know them better. These episodes are not meant to stand alone but they do work together very nicely.
I do think that any of my readers who enjoy thrillers with a lot of tension, action and character development would enjoy this series.
*** I received this book at no charge from NetGalley in exchange for a fair and honest review. All opinions expressed within are my own.
I do think that any of my readers who enjoy thrillers with a lot of tension, action and character development would enjoy this series.
*** I received this book at no charge from NetGalley in exchange for a fair and honest review. All opinions expressed within are my own.
February 4, 2017
Advanced Reader Copy (ARC) provided by the Author and Publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an fair and honest review.
As the tension mounts, the middle of this Installment Series keeps the pressure on. You are getting to know and emphasize with the CMU Team and the victims, even those whose heinous secrets have been exposed. The plot takes some twists and turns and the authors are making this work flow without any hitches. I realize this would have been one really long mystery book, but it reads just like one work. Kudos to the writers for that.
Special Agent Lara Grant and Special Agent Nick Delano are acting co-heads of the CMU unit and now must form new relationships with their fellow agents as they race to find a hostage taken by the bomber. The hostage is Selfie Guy and as unsympatric a hostage as he is, they still have to find him before he is blown up. This high-profile target is a defense attorney with lots of dark secrets and he rejects the bomber’s demands. He wants the CMU to save this victim, but isn't helping them.
As the tension mounts, the middle of this Installment Series keeps the pressure on. You are getting to know and emphasize with the CMU Team and the victims, even those whose heinous secrets have been exposed. The plot takes some twists and turns and the authors are making this work flow without any hitches. I realize this would have been one really long mystery book, but it reads just like one work. Kudos to the writers for that.
Special Agent Lara Grant and Special Agent Nick Delano are acting co-heads of the CMU unit and now must form new relationships with their fellow agents as they race to find a hostage taken by the bomber. The hostage is Selfie Guy and as unsympatric a hostage as he is, they still have to find him before he is blown up. This high-profile target is a defense attorney with lots of dark secrets and he rejects the bomber’s demands. He wants the CMU to save this victim, but isn't helping them.
February 6, 2017
All previous commitments to the weekend are now officially called off, I am so hooked and addicted to this story I need to find out what is going to happen and I have to binge on the rest of the novellas to do that. I need to find out that they will catch the Whisperer. I have to make sure no more people are going to die. But mostly, at the moment, I am concerned about the team members since the troops are crumbling and the pressure they are under is starting to affect them all. Will they survive as a team throughout the investigation? Are the secrets they are holding themselves going to eat them inside out? Is the fear of being targeted by the culprit going to give them more nightmares? Is Lara's past actually connected to the bomber?
The intensity of the story has been high since the first words of the serial novel. At Harlequin website, you can watch a video where the authors take turns to read the beginning of the first novella. As I watched it I had chills, literal chills going down my spine. And that has been the feeling as I have been reading the first four parts, the fervor of the investigation is immense. And it takes even deeper turn with the part four, as the team members begun to be affected personally by the case, and the confrontations are unavoidable.
We get a indebt look at Nick in this part and with his personal revelations I actually felt the sadness of his heart, and the hopelessness his self-discovery brought on. The relationship between Nick and Lara is beyond 'complicated', the new unsteady balance of power with the team chipping away from the previously weak foundation they had managed to built.
Most of the time as I read a novel I get deeply invested in the story, but the hook this serial has on me, the fixation I have with the characters, and the palpable danger, desperation, despair I sense from the novel is rare. I feel obsessed to continue reading the next novella
~ Five Spoons
The intensity of the story has been high since the first words of the serial novel. At Harlequin website, you can watch a video where the authors take turns to read the beginning of the first novella. As I watched it I had chills, literal chills going down my spine. And that has been the feeling as I have been reading the first four parts, the fervor of the investigation is immense. And it takes even deeper turn with the part four, as the team members begun to be affected personally by the case, and the confrontations are unavoidable.
We get a indebt look at Nick in this part and with his personal revelations I actually felt the sadness of his heart, and the hopelessness his self-discovery brought on. The relationship between Nick and Lara is beyond 'complicated', the new unsteady balance of power with the team chipping away from the previously weak foundation they had managed to built.
Most of the time as I read a novel I get deeply invested in the story, but the hook this serial has on me, the fixation I have with the characters, and the palpable danger, desperation, despair I sense from the novel is rare. I feel obsessed to continue reading the next novella
~ Five Spoons
February 14, 2017
Favorite Quotes:
Look. We can’t both be pessimistic at the same time. One of us has to be a glass-half-full, otherwise we’ll both just spend the day in the bar lamenting all the wrongs in the world.
Secrets don’t hurt people. Everyone has secrets…It’s the guilt that kills you, not really the secrets. If you’ve got a conscience, of course. Too many people don’t have a conscience� It’d certainly make our job easier if murderers just dropped dead of their own accord, wouldn’t it?
Everyone in the world has secrets they don’t want people to know. They don’t have to be earth-shattering secrets, just things that could cause a divorce, or being ostracized from your family, or losing your job. Just little things that can escalate. We all have to be careful.
What was wrong with her? She wanted to be friends, but it had been so long since she’d had one, she didn’t recognize any signs of friendship. I have no friends. The thought echoed around her head as if she’d said the words out loud� She wondered who she’d call if she was in trouble.
My Review:
The level of tension and excitement continues to climb as the team finally catches a break and makes a bit of headway. I was riveted by the gripping storyline. The writing for this section was first-rate. The story was cleverly cunning, well-paced, observantly detailed, and emotive. The new victim was identified and researched while the team was racing the clock find him and save his life. Old and new secrets, memories, and epiphanies were weighing heavily on several members. Part 4 has been the best installment yet and I am dancing in my chair with eagerness to devour Part 5 as the deadline has ticked down to mere minutes with hope in sight.
Look. We can’t both be pessimistic at the same time. One of us has to be a glass-half-full, otherwise we’ll both just spend the day in the bar lamenting all the wrongs in the world.
Secrets don’t hurt people. Everyone has secrets…It’s the guilt that kills you, not really the secrets. If you’ve got a conscience, of course. Too many people don’t have a conscience� It’d certainly make our job easier if murderers just dropped dead of their own accord, wouldn’t it?
Everyone in the world has secrets they don’t want people to know. They don’t have to be earth-shattering secrets, just things that could cause a divorce, or being ostracized from your family, or losing your job. Just little things that can escalate. We all have to be careful.
What was wrong with her? She wanted to be friends, but it had been so long since she’d had one, she didn’t recognize any signs of friendship. I have no friends. The thought echoed around her head as if she’d said the words out loud� She wondered who she’d call if she was in trouble.
My Review:
The level of tension and excitement continues to climb as the team finally catches a break and makes a bit of headway. I was riveted by the gripping storyline. The writing for this section was first-rate. The story was cleverly cunning, well-paced, observantly detailed, and emotive. The new victim was identified and researched while the team was racing the clock find him and save his life. Old and new secrets, memories, and epiphanies were weighing heavily on several members. Part 4 has been the best installment yet and I am dancing in my chair with eagerness to devour Part 5 as the deadline has ticked down to mere minutes with hope in sight.
January 18, 2025
This is such a clever concept. One cohesive story released in small bite size chunks. Kinda like a TV show. I’m not sure how often they were released as I listened to the box set of all 8 episodes. I about had a heart attack when I saw the run time was 24 hours!!! That’s an entire day!!! But if you listen when they come out, that’s about 3 hours per episode.
This is the second set but my first of the series. Both focus on the same set of characters. I had no trouble following as the authors do a great job of filling in the needed info.
The premise is intriguing. A bad man is blackmailing people with their secrets telling them if they don’t tell them to the world, a group of people will be killed. That bombshell had the tension staring at the start and had my attention.
I liked the detective team investigating the set of crimes. They all had different strengths and mostly worked well together. With the length I was able to get to know the characters well and the complex plot had time to develop without feeling rushed. There’s a little bit of a romance running throughout but the case remained the focus.
Annalee Scott was the only narrator for the cast of characters. At first I wondered if I’d miss having a cast, but she handled the it well and brought the story to life.
I think I’m a fan of this concept and am intrigued to see if happens more frequently. I planned on taking it slow and found I was so drawn into the story that I finished after just a few days.
This is the second set but my first of the series. Both focus on the same set of characters. I had no trouble following as the authors do a great job of filling in the needed info.
The premise is intriguing. A bad man is blackmailing people with their secrets telling them if they don’t tell them to the world, a group of people will be killed. That bombshell had the tension staring at the start and had my attention.
I liked the detective team investigating the set of crimes. They all had different strengths and mostly worked well together. With the length I was able to get to know the characters well and the complex plot had time to develop without feeling rushed. There’s a little bit of a romance running throughout but the case remained the focus.
Annalee Scott was the only narrator for the cast of characters. At first I wondered if I’d miss having a cast, but she handled the it well and brought the story to life.
I think I’m a fan of this concept and am intrigued to see if happens more frequently. I planned on taking it slow and found I was so drawn into the story that I finished after just a few days.
October 1, 2017
So this. Is getting good
With only eight seconds left you got me. This cliffhanger oils probably one of the best I've read . Countdown is the right title for the series. Good
one, I'm impressed..
With only eight seconds left you got me. This cliffhanger oils probably one of the best I've read . Countdown is the right title for the series. Good
one, I'm impressed..
January 30, 2017
review to follow
February 14, 2017
This installment was a huge change in pace for the bomber. I believe he might be feeling a little pressure and he’s starting to let his emotions get the best of him…or maybe he sees his end game insight and not holding back. Either way, instead of just making a threat of a bomb exploding and killing innocent lives, he has kidnapped someone and has a bomb attached to the individual with the clock running down. Every lead the team seems to get ends up at a dead end or worse…the person gets killed leaving them back at square one.
Something I haven’t mentioned in my last two reviews is that the character development in here is very enjoyable. They all have their quarks, but they really care about each other and it becomes more and more evident as this story develops. You find out that they all seem to be hiding their own secrets and it seems that some might be a little worse than others…maybe some foreshadowing for a future blackmail story line.
The past three installments have definitely hinted at and mentioned the previous 8 part Tough Justice series that is geared around Lara’s time undercover, but this one had a lot more to it…again, just makes me want to read the first 8 part series, but doesn’t take away from your understanding of what is happening in this series.
In true ending form, and I wouldn’t want it any other way in this series, it leaves you off with a major cliff hanger. It’s really what keeps you coming back for more and since this is a multiple part series there are all these little story lines that you’re wondering how they are going to tie up all the loose ends.
I’m still very impressed that out of these first 4 books, they were written by 3 different authors. Aside from the multiple use of �***� to indicate a change in scenes during the third installment the characters all feel the same and have the same voice. I’m very curious to know how these authors came together to write the series and who came up with which characters and which story lines…they all work very well together.
Overall:
I’m still enjoying this series immensely. I’ve really enjoyed the shorter book feel for each story while also giving us a larger mystery that is going to take the entire 8 parts to figure out. I’m half way through the series and very excited to see where the next book takes us into figure out who the bomber is and why he’s doing this all.
Something I haven’t mentioned in my last two reviews is that the character development in here is very enjoyable. They all have their quarks, but they really care about each other and it becomes more and more evident as this story develops. You find out that they all seem to be hiding their own secrets and it seems that some might be a little worse than others…maybe some foreshadowing for a future blackmail story line.
The past three installments have definitely hinted at and mentioned the previous 8 part Tough Justice series that is geared around Lara’s time undercover, but this one had a lot more to it…again, just makes me want to read the first 8 part series, but doesn’t take away from your understanding of what is happening in this series.
In true ending form, and I wouldn’t want it any other way in this series, it leaves you off with a major cliff hanger. It’s really what keeps you coming back for more and since this is a multiple part series there are all these little story lines that you’re wondering how they are going to tie up all the loose ends.
I’m still very impressed that out of these first 4 books, they were written by 3 different authors. Aside from the multiple use of �***� to indicate a change in scenes during the third installment the characters all feel the same and have the same voice. I’m very curious to know how these authors came together to write the series and who came up with which characters and which story lines…they all work very well together.
Overall:
I’m still enjoying this series immensely. I’ve really enjoyed the shorter book feel for each story while also giving us a larger mystery that is going to take the entire 8 parts to figure out. I’m half way through the series and very excited to see where the next book takes us into figure out who the bomber is and why he’s doing this all.
February 28, 2017
The suspense is mounting and the bomber is not following the script he was in the previous installments. Now he has kidnapped "selfie guy" and strapped a bomb to him and sent a note to someone. Hours pass before the CMU is brought in. Oh, and Nick and Lara are no co-SAC and trying to cope with that. The team is trying to build the trust they need to complete this mission and everyone is working against the clock.
There was something that didn't flow about this installment as the others did. Hopefully it will pick up in the rest of the serial.
**Received an ARC copy for review from the publisher via NetGalley**
There was something that didn't flow about this installment as the others did. Hopefully it will pick up in the rest of the serial.
**Received an ARC copy for review from the publisher via NetGalley**
February 15, 2017
Another solid part of the story, really enjoying this story already. Looking forward to part five to see where the story is going, so pleased there are still four parts to go!
February 4, 2017
Book 4: Long story short - more bombings. More not liking the main characters. More cliffhanger ending -- do we now know who the bomber is?
I'm guessing not. After tall, there are 4 more books to go. But who know, maybe the next four focus on capture.
I'm guessing not. After tall, there are 4 more books to go. But who know, maybe the next four focus on capture.
April 24, 2017
Emmy Curtis never disappoints! I loved this high action, supersexy book. Please write MORE now!!
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
Can't find what you're looking for?
Get help and learn more about the design.