Blogging for Books: Not This Time

Not This Time by Vicki Hinze

Seagrove Village, Florida is rocked by another tragedy.  In what seems like a terrorist attack, guests at a local wedding are gassed and knocked unconscious by an unknown assailant.  And not everyone gets out alive.  But that's not all.

Small town business geniuses Sara and Beth have more to deal with than just a post wedding headache.  Sara's husband is missing and Beth is the key suspect in his disappearance.  Their computer company's tie-in with the FBI makes them and their families targets for an international terrorist group.  But this attack seems to be rooted closer to home.  Can Sara find her husband before its too late?  Will the whole town be destroyed by one of their own?

My Thoughts:

This is the third book in the Crossroads Crisis Center series.  And, I have to admit, not having read the first two, I was completely confused.  In the first chapter, you meet Jeff, Roxy, Nora, Harvey, Clyde, Beth, Sara, Robert, Kyle, Hank, Kelly, Lisa, Darla, and Nathara.  Talk about not being able to keep characters straight. I'm sure these were all key people in earlier books but throwing them all in there at once in the beginning of the book just didn't work for me.

After they weeded out the non-essential characters (several chapters and more characters later), I started to get into the plot.  The mystery was unusual and had some good twists.  I did figure out who the local terrorist was long before she was revealed in the story.  But, props to Hinze for creating a unique and detailed mystery.

I do have more complaints than compliments, though.  I found it very hard to believe that an international terrorist organization would spend it's time and energy targeting a small, Florida town, even if they did have ties to the FBI.  I also thought all the terrorists' code names were cheesy.  Yes, I know that's being overly picky, but if that distracts me so much that I can't think about the plot, then I'm going to mention it.  Lastly, there was never a good explanation about what the Crossroads Crisis Center was or what service they performed for the community.  Once again, this was probably covered in an earlier novel in the series, but not having read them, I had no clue.

The good things - intricate mystery, good plot twists
The not-so-good things - too many characters, unbelievable terrorists tie-ins, cheesy bad guy names

I give this book 3 stars out of 5.

I was provided with a complementary Kindle version of this book for review while participating in the Blogging for Books program.  All honest opinions are my own.