Deception Pass (Spider Green, #3) by Norm Harris - Audiobook Review
An exciting military adventure story that left me hungry for more of the series!
JAG Navy lawyer Faydra “Spider” Green is on call when the report of a death on the base comes in. She arrives to discover that the wife of a young marine has been murdered in their home. That call is quickly followed by another for the same thing, another wife has been found murdered, and a third woman is found in similar circumstances before the day is over. All three husbands are devastated and have only recently returned home from a classified mission. Working with the civilian NCIS investigator, Fay counsels the three young men to only speak in the presence of their attorney and offers to stand that role for all of them.
In the meantime, a special prisoner of the Chinese is secretly released from custody and whisked to freedom in Russia. The man, Roman Justine, is an evil from Fay’s past, an evil she’d thought she had already eliminated with extreme prejudice. Justine is out to finish the business between him and Fay, which he failed to complete previously. Fay is equally determined to end things once and for all.
Deception Pass is the third book in Norm Harris’s exciting and action-filled military adventure series featuring Fay ‘Spider’ Green. It is the first in the series to appear in audiobook format, and narrator Maria McCann does a fantastic job giving voice to this strong female protagonist. She completely captures Fay’s personality, and her voice will forever be Fay’s to me. The story includes many other main or supporting characters, and McCann’s presentation skillfully makes each sound natural and unique. I never had trouble discerning which character was talking during an exchange of dialogue.
The story takes Fay and her crew from Washington state to Moscow, in both the present and the past, as both the hunter and the hunted. I found the plot fresh, interesting, and absorbing, and it kept me reading well past the time when I needed to call it a night. It was that good! There were many moments I loved but in particular I enjoyed Fay’s interactions with her Russian counterparts and her performance in the courtroom. I also liked the reappearance of characters from previous books. And don’t be worried about having to read through a recap of all that has gone on before; there is just enough backstory to lend understanding to the current action.
Speaking of which, although the third in the series, the story can be enjoyed as a standalone, but the pleasure would be enhanced by having read the previous books. However, using Deception Pass as your jumping-off point in the series will be dangerous; you will want to acquire those first two books “quick, fast, and in a hurry.” I was glad to see the next book in Fay’s story is already available as an audiobook, and I couldn’t help but snag it the minute this one concluded.
I recommend DECEPTION PASS for readers who enjoy military-based action-adventure thrillers with a side of sci-fi and time travel.