The Rapids
Carla Neggers
Mira, Dec 2004, $6.99
ISBN: 0778321045

In The Hague, U.S. Diplomatic Security Agent Maggie Spencer receives an e-mail from an unknown addressee. She opens the attachment which states that FBI and U.S. Marshall Service most wanted Nicholas Janssen can be caught if Maggie hurries. Though doubting the accuracy, Maggie goes to the rendezvous point and captures the tax evading expatriate. The arrest brings a wave of attention on Maggie that she would prefer to avoid, but also enables her to move a bit past the murder of her father as he was at the wrong time in the wrong place during a bank robbery in the city.

U.S. Marshal Rob Dunnemore comes to The Hague to learn more about the anonymous tip as Nicholas almost killed him and several other agents in an ambush a few months ago. He believes she knows more than she relates to him, which turns out to be true because she knows the tipster is a schizoid who enjoys masquerades to hide her identify. When a diplomat is murdered, Maggie and Rob join forces not knowing that Janssen has a Russian connection that will eliminate those who could incarcerate him for a long time.

Carla Neggers always provides her audience with tense romantic suspense tales; her latest is a rapidly-paced novel that starts rather quickly and never slows down until the final altercation occurs. The investigative crime thriller contains two likable lead protagonists struggling with an attraction while trying to do the difficult job. Though this reviewer cannot understand opening an attached file from an unknown source (federal firewalls that good?), readers will immensely enjoy Ms. Neggers' action-packed tale.

Harriet Klausner