Cold Truth, book six in Toni Anderson’s Cold Justice: Most Wanted series, is a gripping, edge-of-the-seat read that sees the culmination of a long-running plotline that’s been present over several books now. We learned, near the beginning of the series, that the leader of HRT (Hostage Rescue Team) Gold Team, Kurt Montana, had been killed in a plane crash while on his way back from Zimbabwe where he’d been chasing down a lead as to the whereabouts of the terrorist, Hurek Darmawan, who is currently at the top of the FBI’s Most Wanted Fugitive list. (If his name seems familiar it’s because he’s crossed paths with the HRT before; Darmawan was responsible for the attack on a luxury resort and the kidnap of Darby O’ Roarke in Colder than Sin, book two in the Cold Justice: The Negotiators series.) Kurt was a formidable operative; well-liked and highly respected, and, coming hard on the heels of the death of another team member, his loss has hit his colleagues really hard and they’ve been struggling to find their equilibrium in the wake of his death.

At the end of the previous book (Cold Spite), however, Kurt’s daughter, Daisy, set the cat among the pigeons when she showed up at the teams’ usual watering hole to say she thought her dad was alive – and was promptly removed from the bar by operative Jordan Krychek, who had been. with Kurt in Africa but had returned a day earlier and thus hadn’t been on the doomed flight.

Cold Truth opens the night before the day of the flight, and finds Kurt meeting with an old friend from his army days, Bjorn Anders, who Kurt hopes might have some information about Hurek Darmawan. Kurt is tired and cranky; he delayed his return to the US so he could meet with Anders and is anxious to get back after spending two long months in some of the world’s most dangerous places – and Anders is being cagey to say the least. But he does finally come up with a name – Dougie Cavanagh, a Scotsman who had been at the University of St. Andrews with Hurek, but who dropped off the radar a couple of years ago and is presumed to have died. It’s not much – but maybe it’ll give the task force another avenue to explore.

As Kurt is finishing his beer, he notices an attractive young woman watching them from across the dance floor – a woman he’s seen before, the first time he met up with Anders on this visit. Kurt doesn’t believe in coincidences and is immediately suspicious; suspicions which are amplified when he leaves the bar and comes across the same woman in the parking lot, swearing at an old 4×4 and kicking at an obviously flat tyre. It’s got to be a trap or a set up – but Kurt can’t leave a woman alone and stranded and offers to help her.

After losing her only family to a fire a few months earlier, Rowena Smith, a librarian from Shropshire in England, decided to try to track down her biological father. Following the scant clues left by her monther – letters and an old photo of two men, one of whom, Dougie Cavanagh, she suspects is her biodad – Row travelled to Zimbabwe to talk to Bjorn Anders (the other man in the photo) to find out what he knows. She hasn’t yet worked up the courage to approach him – or worked out what to say – but she’s been keeping tabs on him, and has followed him, on this particular occasion, to a local bar. It’s an uneventful evening, although a flat tyre and an awkward confrontation with the good-looking, older American guy who’d been talking with Anders – who asks her some weird questions and then accuses her of being a sex worker or a stalker – isn’t the way she’d thought it would go.

Next morning, Row decides it’s time to actually speak to Anders, so she makes her way to his office intending to do just that – but when she gets there, it’s to find Anders dead and the office ransacked. Looking around anxiously, Row spots a fancy-looking business card lying on the floor and picks it up, reading the words Supervisory Special Agent Kurt Montana embossed on the surface. Wait. Wasn’t Montana the name of the American who’d helped her the night before? And… he’s with the FBI? Then she notices something stuck to the underside of one of the smashed desk drawers – an envelope stuck to the wood with sellotape. Inside, is a photo rather like the one that had sent her to Africa in the first place – this one of four men (including Cavanaugh) sitting around a fire. She knows she should call the police – but they have no reason to believe her story and she has no desire to spend her life in prison for a crime she didn’t commit. Not knowing what else to do, Rowena gingerly takes Anders’ phone from his jacket pocket and uses it to call the number on the business card.

Kurt is about to board his flight back to the US when he gets the call, and even though he’s still not convinced that Rowena Smith is the innocent bystander she says she is, his gut tells him he can’t afford to discount her story. He tells her where to meet him and they head out of Harare, intending to make their way to the Mozambique coast where Kurt hopes he can arrange an extraction.

Well, of course, it’s not going to be as simple as that. In typical Toni Anderson fashion, Cold Truth is slick, fast-moving and action-packed as Kurt and Rowena work out pretty quickly that they’re running from some very dangerous, very powerful individuals who will stop at nothing to get what they want – and stop them from uncovering some long-buried secrets. And Kurt and Rowena aren’t the only ones in danger; back in the US, Jordan Krychek is slowly putting the pieces together and realising that someone out there doesn’t want him to find out the truth.

Amid the twists and turns and the running-for-their-lives, there are some quieter moments in which Kurt and Row have the chance to explore the mutual attraction that had sparked between them at their rather inauspicious first meeting. Their chemistry is electric, and despite their age difference, they’re exactly what the other needs. Rowena is brave and whip-smart – and although, unlike some of the other heroines in the series, she’s never experienced anything that could have prepared her for the world of conspiracies, lies, deceit, murder and dirty dealing she’s been thrown into, she shows incredible resililance and backbone when shit goes down. Kurt is a seasoned operative – competent, intelligent, considered (and sexy, of course!) – who regrets the way he prioritised his job over his family life when he was younger, but who recognises that it’s not too late to re-evaluate what he wants from life. He worries that, at forty-five, he’s too old for Rowena (who is twenty-seven), but they’re so obviously right for one another, their emotional connection so genuine, that it’s a non-issue. Rowena is very clear about what – and who – she wants, and Kurt (eventually) realises he’d be dumb to argue with her!

While there are going to be more books in this series, Cold Truth feels like the well-earned and long-awaited resolution to a sweeping, multi-faceted story. The author’s mastery of interweaving plotlines and timelines is on full display as she pulls together all the threads she’s so carefully planted over the years, and if you’ve been following the series, you’ll recognise the references to events from other books showing that this one takes place concurrently with other missions undertaken by the HRT teams. You could probably read this book without having read the rest of the series, although I think you’ll get more out of it if you’ve read at least some of them. (And why jump in here when there are more great stories to enjoy featuring those sexy HRT operators?)

Cold Truth is an exciting, action-packed rollercoaster ride of thrills and spills featuring likeable, well-rounded characters, a satisfyingly complex plot and an emotionally charged romance. On to the keeper shelf it goes.