Terri Blackstock’s “If I Live,” the third and final installment in her “If I Run” series, picks up immediately after the series’ second story “If I’m Found,” with Casey Cox still on the run for being falsely accused of murdering her friend, Brent Pace.
Dylan Roberts, a private investigator hired by Brent’s family, is still secretly helping Casey as she continues to change her identity and flee to new locations. And together they are both still trying to prove the guilt of dirty detectives Gordon Keegan and Sy Rollins.
As they face more murders, arsons, kidnappings and attempted murders, will Casey and Dylan ever be able to prove her innocence and win back her freedom? And will they be able to work on their developing relationship?
Blackstock once again delivers a breath-taking suspense novel that’s action-packed and intense. As with the prior novels in the series, she sets the story told from the points of view of three characters — Casey, Dylan and Keegan, which provides the reader with several different perspectives to move the story along.
As usual, Blackstock doesn’t just write a great suspense thriller, though. She also sprinkles it with many great lessons — like encouraging us to not wait to let Jesus into our lives; God’s ways aren’t always our ways; God will provide help and ways out of difficult situations; He paves a way for us so that we can complete His plan for us; we must always dig for the truth; and we must choose to trust God.
Quoting Romans 8:28, she reminds us that God will work ALL THINGS for our good.
I would definitely not recommend reading this book as a standalone, although you probably could if you wanted to as Blackstock does a good job of sprinkling the backstory throughout the book, reminding us of the details of Casey’s father’s death, Brent’s murder, and kidnapping and child molestation cases Casey got involved in earlier.
Another great series by Terri Blackstock!
Five stars out of five.
Zondervan provided this complimentary copy for my honest, unbiased review.
“If I Live” (If I Run series, #3) by Terri Blackstock