"Action-packed thriller"

Ruthless Middle Eastern business mogul Marvot demands the best and will do anything to achieve his objective. Though he hides his full agenda from Grace Archer, he orders the talented horse trainer to train the "Pair", lethal Arabian stallion and mare, but she refuses. He kills her host, the owner of an Alabama horse farm, and plans to abduct her beloved eight-year-old daughter to force her cooperation.

On the run, Grace knows she needs help, but has doubts about turning to her ex-spouse, former CIA commando Jake Kilmer, as she blames him for the death of her father and the end of her career. Jake is willing to die to keep his beloved two females safe while Marvot is more than willing and able to accommodate him.

This action-packed thriller starts at hyperspeed and never stops for a breath, if anything it goes even faster. The second chance at love aspects are deftly imbued into the plot as safety remains the top need of the Kilmer-Archer hierarchy. However, the key to the tale is Marvot, a malevolent villain willing to kill anyone in his way yet plays chess with his beloved son. The schism between Jake and Grace seems off kilter especially when they heat up the sands, but fans of Iris Johansen will appreciate the faster than light-speed ON THE RUN.

Harriet Klausner

Reviewed by Harriet Klausner
Posted December 10, 2005

Summary

#1 New York Times bestselling author Iris Johansen is back with an electrifying new thriller that pits a mother and daughter against a relentless killer who takes no prisoners, accepts no surrender, and leaves his intended victims with no choice but one: to run for their lives.... Wherever you stop, he'll be waiting.... The picture was a warning: they'd found her. For eight years Grace Archer hoped this day wouldn't come--and knew in her heart that it would. She'd taken her daughter, Frankie, to a rural Alabama horse farm that might just as well have been at the end of the earth. But the man out to kill them would gladly follow them that far. And now, it seems, he had. A woman with a highly classified past, Grace had never run from anything in her life. But as a mother, she'd do anything to keep eight-year-old Frankie safe. Now that safe world has been shattered, and a ferocious hunter has been unleashed. Suddenly the agency that owed Grace its gratitiude and protection has abandoned her and only one ally remains: a man even more dangerous than her worst enemy. She hasn't set eyes on Jake Kilmer since the catastrophic events of eight years ago. Now he's asking Grace to trust him with the one thing more precious to her than life itself. But with a ruthless criminal kingpin determined to make her pay for the past, her and her daughter's lives on the line, and time running out, she just may have to put her faith in a man who she believes has already betrayed her once.