"The puma and the hawk."

The security team partnership of Morgan Stark, ex-military, and Felicity O'Brien, former jewel thief, is enhanced by a near psychic awareness of each other and of present danger, making them good at what they do, very good. Perhaps the best. But when they take on a new job at the request of a friend, they find themselves out of their league. A new drug, ice, has started to appear on the streets and their job is to track how it is being distributed; but the leader of the Columbian Cartel, the Escorpionistas, has powers of her own...

Action packed from chapter one, this book is a thrill ride but also one filled with emotion right to the end. These are characters, perhaps flawed, but to care about, and feel for, in their troubles and losses. Narrator Nicholas Patrella further enhances the reader's involvement with his fast, almost hypnotic performance. Rhythmic, emotional, and giving individual voice to the different protagonists, he clearly carries the author's well developed scenes as pictures to the mind. Only one slight discrepancy: Felicity, with her vibrant red hair, is distinctively Irish with an heavy accent, but Mr.Patrella's reading gives little indication of this. Far better, however, to offer, as he does, a mere trace of her national speech patterns than give a poor, heavy handed approximation that would leave the reader mentally screaming. Excellent choice, Mr.Patrella.

The Ice Woman Assignment is an excellent entangled and emotional thriller, fast moving, engaging, visual and full of action but without detail overload and, as such, highly recommended to readers enjoying this genre. My thanks to the rights holder who, at my request, freely gifted me with a complimentary copy via Audiobook Boom. I expect that I will think back on this story for some time to come and I am tempted now to read the earlier Stark and O'Brien books by author Austin Camacho.

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