By Suzanne Brockmann. Troubleshooters #9. Grade A+
Breaking Point is Suzanne Brockmann at her best. Let us begin with the blurb:
Uncommon valor in the line of duty and unconditional devotion in the name of love are the salient qualities of the daring men and women who risk it all in the heart-pounding thrillers of New York Times bestselling author Suzanne Brockmann. Crafted with precision and power, her characters come alive with a depth of emotion few writers have achieved. Now, with Breaking Point, Brockmann breaks even further through the pack and delivers a stunning payload.
As commander of the nation’s most elite FBI counterterrorism unit, agent Max Bhagat leads by hard-driving example: pushing himself to the limit and beyond, taking no excuses, and putting absolutely nothing ahead of his work. That includes his deep feelings for Gina Vitagliano, the woman who won his admiration and his heart with her courage under fire. But when the shocking news reaches him that Gina has been killed in a terrorist bombing, nothing can keep Max from making a full investigation”and retribution”his top priority.
At the scene of the attack, however, Max gets an even bigger shock. Gina is still very much alive”but facing a fate even worse than death. Along with Molly Anderson, a fellow overseas relief worker, Gina has fallen into the hands of a killer who is bent on using both women to bait a deadly trap. His quarry? Grady Morant, a.k.a “Jones,” a notorious ex-Special Forces operative turned smuggler who made some very deadly enemies in the jungles of Southeast Asia . . . and has been running ever since. But with Molly’s life on the line, Jones is willing to forfeit his own to save the woman he loves.
Together with Max’s top agent Jules Cassidy as their only backup, the unlikely allies plunge into a global hot zone of violence and corruption to make a deal with the devil. Not even Jones knows which ghosts from his past want him dead. But there’s one thing he’s sure of”there’s very little his bloodthirsty enemies aren’t willing to do.
Count on the intense action and raw honesty that Suzanne Brockmann consistently delivers, as she goes for broke in Breaking Point”and never looks back.
Confusing details, messy plot…a lot of war and action. No, I assure you, the book is far better than that. The writing style of Suzanne Brockmann in this book is really different and very effective.
The book is written from different people’s point of view and it is in past and present both, which gets confusing in the starting but smooths out somewhere around the middle.
The hero is your typical alpha male. Max Bhagat is the commander of the nation’s most elite FBI counterterrorism unit. He is like a legend. All people worship him, dream of talking to him and meeting him. His assistants tremble at the thought of actually seeing him and are always frightened in case they do anything wrong.
Three years after Max told Gina that he couldn’t love her and they parted, he gets the news that she is dead. He is destroyed. When an officer, Jules, tells him of Gina’s death, this is how he reacts:
But then he (Jules) wondered if he himself weren’t on the wrong side of that door. God, but he couldn’t bring himself to turn around and look at Max.
Who was stone-cold dead silent.
It would have been better if he were shouting and breaking things. Punching a hole in the wall. Max rarely lost his temper, rarely lost control, but when he did, it was an earthshaking event.
It was as if Max had shut himself down, made his heart stop beating.
Max decides to bring her body back and bury her and then find the bastard who was responsible for it. But lo and behold, it turns out that Gina was kidnapped, not killed, Max vows to do whatever it takes to get her back and then declare his undying love to her.
The highlights of this book are its light moments – and some of the dark ones too – and the layers of the character. And its tender moments which can bring tears to any girl’s eyes. Max is your hard core FBI agent who appears emotionless, except when it comes to Gina. Read this to see what he feels when he is lying sick at the hospital while Gina cries at his bedside:
Except sometimes he could feel her holding his hand, feel the softness of her lips, her cheek beneath his fingers. Hell would never include such pleasures.
But he couldn’t find his voice to tell her so, couldn’t do more than keep breathing, keep his heart beating.
And instead of dying, he lived. Even though it meant that he had to redefine pain. Because the pain he’d experienced prior to getting shot in the chest didn’t come close to this torture.
But it was a torture that didn’t hurt nearly as much as listening to Gina cry.
Few authors can weave together multiple romantic threads while keeping each story line taut and fresh, but Brockmann is a master at doing just that. Her characters’ relationships often span several books, and their happily ever after, when it comes, is made all the more sweeter-and believable-for it.
The parts that I think could have been improved upon are:
a) Max has finally managed to push Gina away. Although he loves her he just can’t get his mind to wrap around the age difference, nor her open way of doing things. She wants to talk, he would rather crease the sheets. So when he finally gets his wish, that she move on and get over her hero worship of him, his heart cracks when he is told that she has been killed in a bombing. Well, she hasn’t been killed, but she has been kidnapped. Max along with Jules (another well-known character in these books…who is gay and sadly this time around “type casted) try to save Gina before the terroist make good their threat. Will Max be able to save Gina and admit that she it the one for him?
Max’s this constant sense of under-confidence that he doesn’t deserve Gina. He loves her and she loves him back but he lets her go because he feels she’d be happier with someone else. It got on my nerves after a while.
b) The second story of Jones and Molly, Gina’s best friend. I don’t like books with two stories going on at once. Why not make the first book shorter and write another for your secondary characters?
c) The nineteen year old age difference between Max and Gina. I don’t mind it too much, but nineteen? Aw, shit, no.
However, I’d still advise everyone to shelve it. A treat for Brockmann lovers.
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