Stevie‘s review of Built to Last (Black Knights Inc, Book 12) by Julie Ann Walker
Contemporary Romantic Suspense published by Sourcebooks Casablanca 26 Jun 18
The ending of Black Knights Inc. – both the top-secret organisation and the series documenting their adventures – has been inevitable for a while. Answering directly to the President of the United State – the individual, rather than the office-holder – a change in their country’s leadership has meant the winding down of the organisation once they’ve completed their final mission. While I’ve been a little disappointed with recent instalments, I still wanted to follow the series through to its conclusion, not least because I wanted to know how Ace and Rusty were going to resolve their seemingly insurmountable differences. Sadly, this wasn’t their book, although we did get to see their resolution; instead, we mostly follow the rekindled relationship between Angel, a long-standing though often absent member of the team, and Sonya, the former Interpol agent who has long believed that her lover (whom she knew as Mossad agent Mark Risa) died in a mission-gone-wrong. The pair are reunited, when they are both working undercover to bring down the series recurring villain, but it takes a while for them to reveal their identities to each other, even after the sparks of their relationship have been rekindled.
Angel recognises Sonya immediately, of course, although he is initially taken in by her cover-story of having left Interpol and to be working for Lord Grafton – the man behind many of the plots foiled by the Black Knights in recent years – because he is blackmailing her. Sonya, on the other hand, has no reason to believe that the new member of Grafton’s team is anything to do with her former love – Angel has had extensive surgery to alter not just his appearance but also his voice. Her attraction to Angel is heavily tied up with her memories of Mark, however, leading to doubled feelings of guilt over betraying Mark’s memory with a man he would certainly have considered to be his enemy.
As Grafton’s plans for his ultimate act of terror are slowly revealed, the pair realise that they are working on the same side, unite to stop him, and to ensure that the threat he and his group pose is neutralised for good. While Angel is happy to reveal his current identity to Sonya, it takes him a long time to let her know what really happened all those years before, and that part of the plot did feel overly drawn out. Likewise, while I was glad to see more of Rusty and Ace, I was a little disappointed that their story was relegated to being a secondary plot to Angel and Sonya’s story, rather than them getting a novel, or at the very least a novella, of their own.
This book was well on course, in fact, to getting a C Grade, right up to the final few pages. Which, of course, I’m not going to detail here. Overall, a solid ending to the series in terms of action, if not in terms of the romance plots.
Grade: B
Summary:
Welcome to Black Knights Inc.
What appears to be a tricked-out motorcycle shop on the North Side of Chicago is actually headquarters for the world’s most elite covert operatives. Deadly, dangerous, and determined, they’ll steal your breath and your heart.After a mission-gone-sideways forces Jamin “Angel” Agassi to change his identity, he’s determined to bring down the world’s worst crime syndicate kingpin once and for all. That’s going to be the easy part. Keeping Interpol agent Sonya Butler from discovering who he really is—and blazing another trail into his heart—is the challenge.
No excerpt available.
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