It’s been just over seven years since Layla Reyne’s début romantic suspense series featuring FBI agents Aidan Talley and Jameson Walker hit the bookshelves in 2017, although both characters have made cameo appearances in some of the author’s other books, and the Whiskeyverse, as it’s become known, has expanded to include a lot of other characters who have become Aidan and Jamie’s close friends and associates over the years. Angel’s Share is billed as the fifth – and final – book in the Agents Irish and Whiskey series, and it brings readers right up to date with where the guys are in their lives and takes a look at what might be next for them.

If you haven’t read the earlier books in this series or any of the author’s other San-Francisco-set romantic suspense series, then this is absolutely NOT the place to start because there are a lot of cameos and name-checks for several of their characters – and it’s pretty much essential for the reader to be familiar with at least of them and how they are connected to the two leads.

Note: There are spoilers for earlier books in the series in this review.

The overarching plotline of the original Irish & Whiskey trilogy saw widowed FBI agent Aidan Talley finding out who was responsible for the deaths of his husband, Gabe, and his partner, Tom, in a car crash. He didn’t know, at first, that it was murder; but his sister-in-law and boss, Mel Cruz, had received information that pointed in that direction and she asked hot-shot cyber agent, former basketball star Jameson Walker, to partner with Aidan and also to secretly work on following leads on the murder case. During the course of the trilogy, Aidan and Jamie fell in love (not without a few roadblocks, mostly because of Aidan’s unwillingness to open himself up to the possibility of pain and loss by loving again and, of course, Jamie’s ordered deception) and were eventually able to uncover the truth – that a terrorist organisation had been using Gabe’s expertise (he was an investment banker) to launder money.

Gabe’s murder was solved – but, as we learn in Angel’s Share, some loose ends were never tied up regarding the death of Aidan’s partner, Tom Crane.

Aidan and Jamie have been married for five years, and are as blissfully happy as ever. Jamie is still coaching D1 basketball; Aidan is still SAC of the San Francisco FBI office, and life is great. Aidan doesn’t often get to travel with Jamie, but on this particular (holiday) weekend, he’s in LA watching a game (alongside a few familiar faces) when his brother, Danny, who runs the family’s shipping empire, receives information that a valuable cargo – a small fortune in jewellery – has been stolen from the Talley Enterprises yard at the port.

Surveillance footage shows the theft of the truck and identifies the driver as a small-time crook currently out on parole, but the tracking signal from the cargo is being blocked somehow. It doesn’t take Jamie long to un-block it and for them to see that the cargo is on the move. Realising the gems have been transferred to another vehicle, Aidan and Jamie give chase, meeting up with Matt and Rick – two local agents they’ve worked with before – on the road. After a nailbiting drive through the outskirts of LA, they’re able to corner the other vehicle and force it to a stop – but the driver isn’t the man who stole the truck. It’s a kid – a lanky boy of no more than sixteen with unruly brown hair and light brown skin – and as Aidan watches him get out of the car, he feels like he’s been gut-punched. It’s Angel Crane. Tom’s son – and Aidan’s godson.

While Aidan is trying to work out how on earth Angel could have got mixed up in something like this, he’s also turned inside-out by guilt. He’d promised Tom he’d look after his wife, Isabella, and their son if anything happened to him – which Aidan made sure to do, until a few years earlier when Isabella cut all ties and moved to LA. Aidan has never known why she did that, and she made it very clear that she didn’t want him to contact her again, but he still feels guilty for not pushing to find out.

Aidan is sure that Angel is trying to protect someone by refusing to talk, but the boy is stubborn and isn’t going to give up the information easily. It takes a lot of coaxing and charm on Jamie’s part to make a connection, but once it’s established, things start falling into place and the plot starts to widen out from a seemingly straightforward case of theft to something much deeper and darker, related to some unfinished business from Aidan’s past.

Angel’s Share bears all the hallmarks of a Layla Reyne book – it’s a fast-paced, intricately-plotted page-turner with plenty of action, steamy smexy-times and a strong emphasis on relationships, be they familial (found or blood), friendships or romantic ones. And at the heart of it all are Aidan and Jamie, with their unwavering trust in one another, their absolute devotion to protecting those they love and their fierce determination to get to the truth, no matter what.

The plot is complex with a lot of moving parts (you’ll need to pay attention!), but there’s a fairly good balance between it, and the quieter, more intimate moments in which Aidan and Jamie begin to talk about what lies ahead for them. They’ve both thought, in fairly vague terms, of having a family of their own some day, but those ideas have never really crystallised until now, with Aidan – now approaching fifty – realising that having kids and being a dad is something he wants. There’s a lot of fun and banter and some nice moments of connection and reconnection between key characters – as well as some hints about who might be taking the starring roles in the future spin-offs the author has said she’ll be focusing on soon.

With plenty of thrills and spills, twists and turns, Angel’s Share is a quick, rollercoaster ride of a read that comes full circle for Aidan and Jamie and sends these two beloved characters off into the sunset in a most satisfying way.