Standoff

OSI Special Agent Vin Cooper is brought to the scene of an airport massacre in El Paso, Texas, to investigate the death of a USAF airman, AWOL from a nearby Air Force base.

When a survivor of the chilling massacre crawls out of the desert, Cooper comes to the obvious conclusion – with major cartels just across the border in Juarez, this has to be about drugs.

As he begins to piece together the case, Cooper is drawn into a world of violence and treachery. Soon he finds himself on the run, framed for murders he didn't commit. But being a fugitive just happens to be the perfect cover for his most dangerous mission yet – crossing the border and infiltrating the cartel.

Coming face-to-face with a terrifying madman, Cooper soon realizes that the airport massacre was just a dress rehearsal for something even worse ...

I received this book for free from in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Review by Travis Starnes

Standoff follows agent Vin Cooper’s investigation into a dead USAF airman during a massacre at an El Paso airport and on to an adventure into Central America.

I have to say first off I have not read any of the previous Vin Cooper books and was not aware this was a series when I started reading it. Thankfully Rollins built in a learning curve for people like me and while there were moments where it I noticed things being brought up that were clearly from earlier works, those were usually minor and didn’t detract from the enjoyment of the books.  There were enough intros to the character that I wasn’t left guessing as to what was going on.

As a character I generally really liked Cooper.  He isn’t as hard boiled as I usually like my main characters in this type of thriller but was enough of a bad ass that I had no problems with him.  What I do really like about the character is his sense of humor.   While not relying on the humor in the main character as some other titles do there was enough of it through Cooper that it helped to break the tension in parts and make the story read faster.  The other thing I liked is how vulnerable Cooper was.  Unlike some books where he could do no wrong and no one could touch him there were moments that I actually felt like something might happen to him, although logically I knew that wasn’t true since there was always enough books left that if he died the following 100 pages would be pretty weird.

The action is also mostly well done.  Except for the last fight everything played in an over the top yet believable way that I enjoyed.  It was fast passed and there was enough of it to really keep the book moving along at a crisp pace.  My only real issue was the last 2 big action beats.  Both were WAY over the top, kind of hard to follow at times and simply not so far out there as to keep me from suspending my disbelief.

Therein lays the only real issue I have with the book.  I was totally on board with the plot till the very end of the book when the villains plan was realized and actualized.  The plan was so ridiculous and how it came about so unbelievable there is just no way I could get into the chapter.  I kept thinking “this would never ever happen like this.  It’s just ridiculous.”  Keep in mind I love sci-fi and zombie books and the end of this book was less believable then a those genres.  It’s unfortunate too, because it took what would have been a 5 star book for me and knocked it down a peg.

Even considering the far-fetched way the book ended up I still think it is a great read and worth picking up.  It has me wanting to go back and read some of the earlier works in the series.