THE GATEKEEPER - Michelle Gagnon, draft copy

I volunteered last week.....I rarely if ever volunteer having been in the Air Force for 22 years (retired lo these last five years), but I saw a fab opportunity on Friday when I read the request from Michelle Gagnon, author of THE TUNNELS and BONE YARD. She was on one of the Suspense and Thrillers group on Shelfari, requesting a Beta reader for her draft of her latest book, THE GATEKEEPER. I jumped right in and emailed her my participation. I then read the part where she would ideally like to have it completed in a week...YIKES! I read fairly quickly, but this was also to let Michelle know where the slow parts were or if anything didn't make sense. I thought I might need more than a week.

Happily, my worries were for naught....I received her email with the draft in word format and I very quickly read and highly enjoyed the ride with FBI Agent Kelly Jones and her fiance, Jake Riley, newly civilianized and working for himself in the security field.

Jake and his partner, Syd, former Agency, are hired by a friend of Syd's to retrieve his kidnapped daughter. Everything begins to spiral to the dark side pretty much immediately.

Kelly Jones has a new case she isn't sure about and a new partner she isn't sure she can trust. Kelly feels she is on the outs with the FBI and is sure this is the reason this case (and this partner) are handed to her to handle. A US Senator from Arizona is found dismembered and impaled on a statue in front of the State Capitol building.

The two cases become intertwined as the reader senses it must, but it is done quite intricately and there was no eye-rolling on this reader's part, as I have done in the past with intertwining case efforts in the past from other authors.

The premise for the story is very current and gripping. This book is different from Michelle's previous two. No serial killers here. This is kidnapping, terrorism, homeland security, immigration...all rolled into a thriller.

I can hardly wait until November and I can read the finished product. I will re-review it then. It will likely get it's five beans, too.

Until then....four suspenseful beans......