The Cost of Love-Drue Allen

The Cost of Love
Drue Allen
Five Star, Apr 7 2010, $25.95
ISBN: 9781594148675

US Citizenship and Immigration Services Commander Martin sends his top field operative to White Sands Missile Range to look at a corpse. In the contained facility, septuagenarian Dr. Kowlson warns Dean Dreiser not to puke inside his hazmat suit when he sees the body of a young woman, who died from a biological weapon. Dean holds in his bile until he leaves.

With less than two weeks before the threat goes hot, the few clues focus on Roswell, New Mexico where Dean works undercover as a bartender at E.T. He is joined on the mission who is undercover at E.T. by twenty-something expert Dr. Lucinda Brown; whereas Dean believes her lack of field experience makes her a handicap, Kowlson and Martin chose her as the only person capable of defusing the weapon of mass destruction. They diligently work together to try to prevent the terrorist threat from an unknown group from occurring, but with limited success even as two more bodies are found that prove the enemy knows the American responder system, but with the days ticking away, these killers ask for nothing.

This is an exhilarating bio-terrorism attack that grips the reader when Dean sees the first corpse and holds it together long enough to drive away before vomiting and never slows down from there as the clock is ticking and the terrorists are experimenting. Dean and Lucinda are a wonderful pairing as they are attracted to one another, but understand the mission comes first. Although the final coda seems a minor stretch not quite as long as White Sands is, fans will appreciate this tat romantic suspense thriller.

Harriet Klausner