Narrated by Greg
Tremblay

Book 3.5 in the Flashpoint series, Inferno is the latest release from Rachel Grant. While the story is quite self-contained it does contain spoilers for the previous books (especially Firestorm) and I do think the story will work better for those who have read/listened to the previous novels.

Inferno picks up very shortly after the events of Firestorm and the
fallout from the reveal of the ultimate bad guy (that’s not actually the best
description but I’m being vague on purpose to avoid spoilers). Kaylea Halpert
works at the US Embassy in Djibouti. She’s a diplomat but also a covert CIA
case office who had a pivotal role in saving the day in the previous story.

Sergeant Carlos Espinosa is a Puerto Rican-born Green Beret and part of the team deployed at Camp Citron in Djibouti, helping to train the local soldiers. Carlos’ team is due to leave Djibouti in only a few days. He’s looking forward to being stateside again but he has had a crush on Kaylea for months so he’s disappointed he didn’t get a chance to date her.

Kaylea is a
Black woman with sexy curves and killer fashion style. She wears sleek business
suits and knee-high boots Carlos has been thinking about way too much. (To be
fair, they are amazing boots.)

Carlos is among
the few who have put together that Kaylea is likely a CIA agent and this makes
him admire her even more. He describes her as being “brainy, beautiful and
badass” and one of the things I loved best about Carlos was how he celebrated
Kaylea’s skills and talents. Kaylea had a bit of the James Bond gadgetry going
on at times and Carlos was only ever admiring.

When the story begins, Kaylea is invited to a party at the new palatial home of an ex-pat Saudi businessman with suspected ties to the Russian Bratva. She is reluctant to attend because the dude gives her the creeps but is required to because of her job. So she enlists the aid of her favourite Green Beret, Carlos, to pretend to be her boyfriend and stick close for protection.

Carlos and
Kaylea don’t stay long at the party and after, finally let their long-simmering
attraction out to play. Kaylea is delightfully bold in bed, unashamedly asking
for what she wants and Carlos is Here. For. It. Any HEA for them is complicated
however because Carlos is about to leave, Kaylea needs to keep her private life
very close because of the risks of her job and besides that, she’s staying in
Djibouti for the foreseeable future. Who knows when or if they will be in the
same country again? How could a relationship between them possibly work in the
long term?

Carlos is
respectful but also not shy about asking for what he wants. And what he wants
is a shot. He knows Kaylea has a super-secret and private email address or
phone number which would be known only to her closest family and friends; a way
for them to be in contact without the CIA knowing or anyone else. He asks for
this information and crosses his fingers that Kaylea will give him a chance.

Then things go
terribly wrong as Carlos is attacked and Kaylea has to ride to the rescue and
there are explosions, lots of bad guys, some of whom come from unexpected
places, and a daring, risky escape.

I have to say,
for someone who has the mad skillz that Kaylea does, I did find her email
address to be laughably insecure but apart from that, the story was tight and
tense with a great mix of romance and suspense which worked well with its
novella length. Both main characters got a chance to shine but I especially
appreciated how Kaylea got to show off her field skills.

I did have some
discomfort about Kaylea’s role with the CIA. The CIA has been responsible for
some pretty terrible things, after all. There was a little bit of discussion in
Kaylea’s backstory about her having some reservations about the agency herself
before she joined but that part of the story didn’t really go anywhere so I was
still a little confused at the end as to what changed Kaylea’s mind and why she
decided to join/stay. Still, Kaylea herself is an honorable woman and her
work is not problematic and that helped.

The narration is excellent. Of course it is – it’s Greg Tremblay! Mr. Tremblay has wonderful female character voices, a wide variety of male tones and is great with accents – never stepping into caricature. He delivers the intimate scenes well, not overdoing it with the enthusiasm but also clearly displaying the developing mutual affection and passion of the characters by his use of tone and emotion. Greg Tremblay is one of my very favourite male narrators; his performance is always of an extremely high quality and I know I’m guaranteed to enjoy it. I feel the similarly about Rachel Grant’s romantic suspense actually.