"Excellent Cold War-era thriller will keep you on the edge of your seat."

If you are looking for a frumpy, boring intellectual to drag you along the greater halls of learning, then Professor Faith Whitney is not the girl to teach you. However, if you are looking for some Russian antiquities, black market iconography, or a course in how to smuggle the same back and forth between East and West Berlin, then you gotta have Faith. Danger? No problem. Insurmountable obstacles? She can usually bluff or sweet talk her way around them. Love? Well, now that might just be her Achilles heel.

Faith comes by her smuggler's blood honestly. Her first memory or nightmare is of her beloved stuffed bear full of contraband Bibles, which her mother then ruthlessly sacrifices before her tearful toddler's eyes. Half the game for Faith is the hunt, that endless search for all treasures hidden. Yet the one thing she really is searching for is someone who can't or won't be found. Her mysterious father.

The other half of the game is the danger. It's a rush she cannot and will not deny. Unfortunately, there are too many factions at war in her chosen hunting ground, including those who don't see eye to eye with General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev's plan to democratize the Soviet Union. Faith is the cornerstone to a plan to assassinate him and bring Communism back to the forefront. Now it will take all of Faith's skills, disguises and hidden talents, to try to stop the red tide, without losing her own very precious life. In addition, she'll have to learn to have a little faith in her old Special Forces flame Commander Max Summer, trust a lusting female Colonel of the KGB and come to grips with her past and a mother she never really understood.

The Cold War is alive and well inside the mind of Raelynn Hillhouse. Her first novel is a triumph of twists and turns, full of adventure, intrigue and romance. This is one book you won't be able to put down until it's finished. If it's a first rate high-stakes suspense you're looking for, coupled with someone who makes you smile and groan and feel like you're watching your very best friend risk her life for some crazy chess set, you gotta have Faith.

Reviewed by Anne Barringer
Posted July 19, 2004

Summary

In the turbulent years after the rise of the Berlin Wall, Germany stood dangerously divided between freedom and Communism. Dodging border patrols and guard posts, a silent few were able to cross the borders of the Iron Curtain to deliver needed supplies, always at the risk of their own lives. This is the past Faith Whitney knew. The daughter of an active smuggler of religious paraphernalia, Faith was raised on the danger that such a life brought with it, a danger that can rip lives apart, even that of a mother and daughter. Now grown and living in 1989 Germany, Faith continues to smuggle goods across the border, narrowly slipping by the East German Stasi each time. But her activities haven't gone unnoticed. The Stasi have recruited her to deliver a package to Moscow, a package that must be delivered within forty-eight hours . . . or Faith will be eliminated. Her payment: the long-desired location of her missing father. The danger mounts as Faith is secretly contacted by the beautiful and seductive Colonel Bogdanov of the KGB, who also wants the package at any cost. Barely surviving harsh interrogations, and unsure of whom to trust, Faith turns to her ex-fiancée, Naval Officer Max Summer, the only man with the know-how to get her and her delivery to Moscow in one piece. On the run, the more they discover about the package, the more they realize that delivering it will likely cost them their lives. Little do they both know that the package is part of a larger plan, one that could affect the result of the Cold War in ways no one ever imagined. Raelynn J. Hillhouse has constructed an engrossing novel of espionage, action, and heart-pounding danger. Told with knowledge and authenticity, Rift Zone takes you inside the workings of communist East Germany and the Soviet Union.