LOOSE ENDS - Tara Janzen
Special Defense Force , Book 11
Loose Series, Book 5
Dell
ISBN: 978-0-440-24610-7
February 2011
Romantic Suspense

Denver, Colorado - Present Day

For the past six years—the only years he remembers—Conroy Farrel has lived for one purpose: to find and destroy the man responsible for what was done to him.  Tortured and experimented on, Con is now a super-soldier, but the pain and constant need for the psychopharmaceuticals to counteract what he's been injected with seem like too high a price to pay for the results.  Since finding out that Randolph Lancaster was the man behind his ordeal, Con has been relentless in trying to find him, but now he has to put that mission on hold to deal with his new enemies, the Special Defense Force, SDF.  Con had promised the man who'd shared in his torture that he would protect his daughter, Scout, but now SDF is holding Scout hostage, and nothing will stop Con from getting her back.

Learning that Lancaster, the man who created SDF, has been having American soldiers “enhanced” and then selling them to the highest bidder, is one of the deepest betrayals Dylan Hart has ever known.  The worst though, is knowing that the man he trusted sold out Dylan's friend and teammate, J.T. Chronopolous.  For six years the members of SDF, especially the original Steele Street boys, have dealt with the guilt of not being able to rescue J.T. and the devastation of losing one of their own.  A mission in Paraguay reveals that J.T. is still alive, but drastically altered and with no memory of Steele Street .  Because of the drugs J.T. would've been given, they know that tranquilizing him is iffy at best, so they devise a plan to lure him to Steele Street , where they can hopefully convince him to let them help.

Jane Linden is stopped dead in her tracks when she sees J.T. Chronopolous walking down the street.  After he caught her picking his friend's wallet, she developed a bit of a crush on J.T. that became a strange, yet brief relationship.  They had one memorable night together before he shipped out on a mission—a mission he never returned from.  While she's now a manager at the Toussi gallery, Jane hasn't forgotten how to pick a pocket, and she immediately heads to Steele Street after lifting the man's wallet, hoping to talk to Hawkins or Creed about what she's seen.  When she mistakenly exits the elevator into the garage, though, it's not Hawkins or Creed standing by the midnight blue 1967 Pontiac GTO named Corinna…it's J.T.  When all hell breaks loose, Jane finds herself in Corinna, and then in for the wildest night of her life.

As Con tells Jane, buckle up, because readers are in for as wild a ride as Jane in LOOSE ENDS.  For the most part, the novels in the Special Defense Force series have worked fairly well as stand-alone books, this one is definitely better read in order.  J.T. is captured, tortured. and then murdered in front of Creed early in the series, and his death has haunted the characters throughout the subsequent books.  Much like the title, this story is tying up the loose ends of the previous tales.  The SDF had found out about the experimentation going on in Bangkok ; Dylan Hart and Gillian “Red Dog” Pentycote were also victims of the demented Dr. Souk.  They've managed to track down the different villains who had been working together, book by book, and in the last one, BREAKING LOOSE (released July 2009) the team found out the identity of the spymaster, along with finding J.T.  The group of guys who, once upon a time, stole cars and ran a chop shop out of Steele Street, and the people who've joined them in what is now SDF are about to face the riskiest and most important mission of their lives: saving J.T.

Con doesn't ever remember being in Denver before, but he finds it all oddly familiar.  He has no recall of his life before six years ago, but in the garage at the Steele Street building he starts having flashes.  He knows all of the muscle cars on display by name, and the GTO he's drawn to reveals a picture of himself, and two other men, one of whom is unmistakably his brother.  The woman who had sparked an instant interest on the street showing up in the garage is a complication he wasn't ready for, and her refusal to leave his side indicates that they once knew each other very well.  As if dealing with the mission, the memory flashes, and Jane isn't enough, Lancaster is in Denver , providing Con with the opportunity for revenge, but also throwing his goons into the mix to complicate things more.  Like most of the books in the series, LOOSE ENDS takes place over a relatively short period of time, throwing two people with a past together into an amazing adventure.

A thrill-ride from beginning to end—and in classic muscle cars no less—LOOSE ENDS is a riveting read that I highly recommend.

Jennifer Bishop