Author Lisa Harris offers a great suspense novel, with a slight bit of potential romance, in “Vendetta,” the first installment of her new series. In it she tackles some hard-hitting topics, like why does God allow horrible things to happen and how do you let trials affect your faith.
Special Agent Nikki Boyd, a member of the Tennessee Missing Persons Task Force, is called into a missing persons case while out rock climbing with her friend, Tyler Grant, whose wife (Nikki’s best friend) died just one year ago. As Nikki and Tyler get pulled into looking for 16-year-old Bridget Ellison, Nikki must deal with her past head on — 10 years ago her younger sister, Sarah, disappeared in a manner eerily familiar to Bridget’s case.
Harris craftily weaves together moments of intense action, as they search for Bridget and possibly the Angel Abductor involved in Sarah’s kidnapping 10 years ago, and downtime as Nikki and Tyler reflect on dealing with with the complication of acceptance, grief, and the lack of resolution to that grief.
The author makes her characters deal with some pretty deep themes — allowing for the fact that “sometimes you do everything right and it still isn’t enough”; dealing with moments when the past and present collide; facing loss, darkness, blame and grief; acknowledging how life’s circumstances impact one’s faith; and determining why God allows horrible things to happen, even to good people. These are hard, deep themes we all deal with on a constant basis, and Harris does a good job sorting through them.
“Vendetta” features several great characters, including the more minor character Jack, who seems to be allergic to everything and provides great comic relief. The plot contains just enough clues to keep you guessing until the very end.
And on a weird side note: I love the feel of this book. The literal, physical feel of it. It feels nice in your hands. It’s a comfortable read.
Five stars out of five.
Revell, a division of Baker Publishing Group, provided this complimentary copy for my honest, unbiased review.
“Vendetta” (The Nikki Boyd Files, #1) by Lisa Harri