Ambush by Barbara Nickless

 

First Line: The call came late on an August evening while Jeremy Kane was upstairs, rocking his infant daughter.

 

When she was in the Marines, railway cop Sydney Parnell made a promise to Malik, a young Iraqi boy. Unfortunately, Malik has secrets that an assassin Sydney knows only as the Alpha wants.

 

In order to keep her promise to the boy, Sydney travels to Mexico City and back to Denver, Colorado. With the help of her ex-war dog, Clyde, she is determined to track down the Alpha and keep her promise to Malik. 

 

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Barbara Nickless certainly knows how to write compelling thrillers with strong main characters. Former Marine and railway cop Sydney Rose Parnell suffers from PTSD. In Iraq, she served in Mortuary Affairs, the detail that prepared soldiers killed in action to be returned to their families in the U.S. In her own words, "We were the Marines the other Marines avoided. The pariahs, the bad-luck charms. The ones no one wanted to risk being near." Combine that with her other combat experiences and it's no wonder that she has PTSD. At least, now in her job as a railway cop, she has her former war dog, Clyde, at her side to help her out.

Ambush centers on the promise Sydney made to a young Iraqi boy and the lengths to which she will go to fulfill that promise. The narrow escapes she has from the killer known as Alpha show how determined he is to keep his secrets, but they also show that Sydney refuses to quit. Her guilt and the promise she made to the Iraqi boy, Malik, prove that nothing will stop her in her quest to ensure a good life for the boy-- even if it means getting to the bottom of why Alpha will go to any lengths to cover his tracks. 

Sydney Parnell is a strong, nuanced character that readers can really sink their teeth into, and her investigations can really keep hearts racing. I know I'm looking forward to the next book in the series.

Ambush by Barbara Nickless

eISBN: 9781503901513

Thomas & Mercer © 2019

eBook, 356 pages

Police Procedural/Working Dogs, #3 Sydney Rose Parnell mystery

Rating: B+

Source: Purchased from Amazon.

Dead Stop by Barbara Nickless

First Line: Her husband brought home little from the war.

When a woman is murdered on the train tracks and a child goes missing, Special Agent Sydney Parnell fears that she really isn't ready for another investigation since she hasn't fully recovered from a violent confrontation five months before. But she also knows that she's the only one who can lead the hunt for the child and the killer.

The Denver PD and the FBI chase their own tails, but Parnell follows a single cryptic clue that was left behind at the crime scene.

While the Denver area is being hammered by a series of thunderstorms that threaten massive flooding, Parnell and her K9 partner Clyde find themselves following a trail of murder that stretches back thirty years-- all to rescue a little girl and to catch a killer with a long memory.

Like the first book in the series, Blood on the Tracks, Dead Stop kept me enthralled from first page to last. The fast-paced story, the multi-faceted main character, and the information I learned along the way combined for a perfect read.

Among the things I learned? A bit of Colorado history, that Silly String isn't just for making messes, and bits and pieces of railroad lore and procedures. Don't mind me, trains click-clacking down the tracks lulled me to sleep as a child, and the book isn't chockful of railroad trivia if that's not really your thing. But all these things add depth to the setting and helped put me right in the middle of the action.

Dead Stop has an excellent mystery. I loved how all the various threads were woven together and how Parnell teased out all the clues. And the ending had my heart in my throat.

But the characters are what make the story work. FBI Special Agent "Mad Mac" McConnell worked well with Parnell, and as bits of her history were shared, I could see why McConnell was such a strong, interesting character. But it's ex-Marine Sydney Rose Parnell and her inherited ex-war dog Clyde who got most of the attention, as well they should. Both fought in Iraq. Clyde's handler was the love of Parnell's life, and she inherited Clyde when her lover was killed. Both woman and dog suffer from PTSD, and although they are a formidable team when they're on the job, it's not all about the job. This partnership runs deep because they both look to each other for emotional support, too.

The quotes that begin each chapter are from Parnell's classwork, therapy sessions, and her personal journal, and they shed light on the type of person she is. One of the best things this book-- and the series-- does is to help illustrate what soldiers returning from war go through.

I enjoy the author's blend of setting, story, and character so much that I'm really looking forward to the next book in the series. I hope you'll give these books a try, and I do recommend that you begin with the first book, Blood on the Tracks.
 

Dead Stop by Barbara Nickless

eISBN: 9781503943384

Thomas & Mercer © 2017

eBook, 388 pages

Police Procedural, #2 Sydney Rose Parnell mystery

Rating: A+

Source: Purchased from Amazon.


 

Blood on the Tracks by Barbara Nickless

First Line: His life wasn't worth spit in a hard rain.

When his fiancée is found murdered, the prime suspect is the Burned Man, a hideously scarred Iraqi war veteran. However, railroad police Special Agent Sydney Rose Parnell is convinced that there's more to this apparent crime of passion than meets the eye. Perhaps it's because she and her K-9 partner, Clyde, are also veterans of Iraq, but Parnell can't help digging deeper in the investigation.

The further Parnell and Clyde look into the crime, the further they descend into the underground world of a savage gang of rail riders until they uncover a conspiracy and a series of shocking crimes. Not only do these two have to protect themselves from a brutal Denver winter, but they also have to protect themselves from killers who do not wish to be exposed.

If there's one thing this hard-hitting, compelling mystery brought home to me once more, it's the fact that we ask too much of our two- and four-legged soldiers. We always have, and we have always given them too little in return.

I recently came across a list of seven mysteries featuring working dogs. Since I'd read four of the books and liked and/or loved them, I thought I'd get my hands on the other three. Blood on the Tracks is the first of the three I've read. I liked the sound of it because I had yet to read a book about a railroad detective. I suppose I thought hobos and all that had gone out with the Depression back in the 1930s. (Sometimes my thought processes need a good dusting.)

Even though I did roll my eyes a little at a few things in the book (the best time to track a killer out in the middle of nowhere is during the Storm of the Century; whodunit was a bit easy to piece together; and why does a female character have to have a love interest?), I was still blown away by this fast-paced, visceral story, and that has almost everything to do with the main character.

I immediately fell under the spell of Sydney Rose Parnell's voice. She may have inherited her fiancé's dog, and she may think "something was broken inside of Clyde," but she is the one who is truly broken. Each chapter begins with an excerpt from her private journals or college classwork, and these passages hammer home the damage her time in Iraq has done. Parnell was part of a team none of us want to think much about: Mortuary Affairs. As a member of that team, it was her responsibility to find every bit of a deceased soldier that she could in order to piece the body back together. If a part could not be found, it had to be "shaded out" on the proper form. Each time Parnell touches her heart with her hand and makes a dead soldier whole in her mind, it's a mind punch for the reader, and Parnell's world is brought into sharper focus.

Parnell's K-9 partner, Clyde, doesn't have quite as much to do in this book as working dogs have in similar books I've read, but I think his contribution will grow (and what he does do is choice). There are some unanswered questions about Iraq that should come to light in the next book in the series, and I'm looking forward to reading Dead Stop. I want to learn more railroad and hobo lore, and I definitely want to learn more about Sydney Rose Parnell. She's the type of character to get under a reader's skin and refuse to leave. I like that.

Blood on the Tracks by Barbara Nickless

eISBN: 9781503936867

Thomas & Mercer © 2016

eBook, 386 pages

Thriller, #1 Sydney Rose Parnell mystery

Rating: A+

Source: Purchased from Amazon.