It's probably fair to say that this is my favourite Revell book thus far, though I'm wondering if the reasons for that are ones that the author intended or not. Some surely are, but I have a feeling a few may be positive side effects of the restrictions that this genre of Christian romantic suspense impose. Usually, they manifest as negatives for me, but very much not here.

One reason I liked it a lot is that it's hard to tell who the actual lead is. This is the second book in a series called 'Missing in Alaska', even though it doesn't remotely feel like it; it starts a story and it ends a story in a way that's clearly open for sequels, but it's never anything but a beginning. That appears to be because the continuing elements are a state and a police chief, the former being an acutely loose setting given how big Alaska is and how much we travel within it in this book, and the latter clearly playing a relatively small supporting role this time out. I don't believe I missed much by coming in on book two.

If the lead isn't Police Chief Autumn Long, who led the first book, who is it? Well, it's either Trevor West or Carrie James. Or both. In reality, they're both lead characters in their own stories, but also the sidekicks in each other's. Which they happen to occupy at any point in time depends on which is the focus and that's complicated by the fact that they not only unfold alongside each other but by the inevitable revelation that they're really both part of the same story. At that point, Trevor and Carrie ought to become co-stars, but they never really do, even if that's likely where a third book in the series will go, if it doesn't shift to completely different characters again.

We meet Carrie first, but only in a prologue, as she's thrown out of an aeroplane in mid-flight two hundred feet above the ground somewhere in Africa. It would be reasonable to assume that she is not going to survive long enough to reach chapter one, which revolves around Trevor. He used to be a marshal in Chicago but now he's a county detective in Montana, experience from both these jobs likely to help him as he searches for his sister, Jennifer Warner, who went missing in Alaska a year ago, even though he's only just found that out.

You see, Jennifer is or was a photographer and, before she disappeared, she left a message with a friend, Monica Nobel, that if anything should happen to her, she should pass on a particular key to a safety deposit box to her brother, Trevor. However, Monica was promptly kidnapped and killed and so never got the chance to do so. Her stuff all went to her parents, but they haven't looked it until now, consumed by grief for the loss of their daughter. After a year, they finally dived in, found the message and brought in the police, who bring in Trevor.

The safety deposit box contains a set of photos, each of a different location in Alaska, so Chief Long sends him to the best bush pilot in the state, who likely knows all these places, and naturally that's Carrie. She survived that cliffhanger scene in Africa, though she was seriously hurt and is lucky to not only be alive but walking with a limp. Isaac, who found her in the jungle, brought her to Alaska and they've been running a small airline business ever since, which is at least a decade. Initially, it works out great, because she absolutely recognises the locations and she starts flying him around, but she gets back to find Isaac dead. Trevor finds another pilot, who's promptly murdered too and all his photos vanish, too.

And so it's deal time. Carrie is willing to help Trevor, to fly him to all the locations she recognised and remembered, if he helps her solve Isaac's death in return. The local police department don't have enough evidence to consider him murdered, though they're open to the possibility, so it's on her to get the job done. With the agreement, we have a book and, of course, not only a suspense thriller but a romance too, because that's what Revell publish, from a subtly Christian angle.

As they go, there's lots of good to be found. For one, just as we're never quite sure who the lead is and who the support, the threats that begin with those two deaths are clearly aimed at them but at which one? Are they threats aimed at Carrie because they started with Isaac or are they aimed instead at Trevor because they continued to his next pilot? We don't know and it's a good doubt to have as the suspense builds.

For another, Trevor and Carrie (or Carrie and Trevor) work well together. They're both professional in their fields, but their skillsets are different so they complement each other well. There's plenty of chemistry too, against both their expectations. Neither has any interest in beginning some sort of romance but we know that it's going to happen anyway and it does so believably. Which leads to the third reason, which is that the one aspect that isn't believable actually works out in what I can only assume is a fortunate side effect rather than the author's design.

That's that there's absolutely no hanky panky, even though Carrie and Trevor find themselves all over Alaska, always in each other's company, flying here, staying there and sharing chemistry the whole way. That's because this is Christian romantic suspense and the genre requires no smut. It's unrealistic to attempt to buy into how they steadfastly avoid the sex scene that the entire book has been building towards from its early chapters, but it does work to build the sexual tension between them to almost unbearable levels because Goddard is literally not allowed to defuse it. It's all the more sexual for not containing any sex.

The final benefit is that, while the romantic angle begins early and continues throughout, there's far more suspense here than romance. If you want to read this as Christian fiction, you can because there are occasional references to the Bible, but it's easy to ignore if you don't. If you want to read it as a romance, you can because it is, but it's never consummated and so remains at a distance for the entire book. The best way to read it is as a thriller and, from that standpoint, it's notably more focused on its plot than any of the other Revell books I've read, except maybe the serial killer story in Lynette Eason's 'Critical Threat', and this works better as suspense.

I still chuckle at how I've ended up being the Christian romantic suspense correspondent here at the Nameless Zine, but I'm thankful for everything Revell is sending over for review. It's been quite the fascinating ride thus far into a genre I wouldn't usually approach and, as I mentioned at the outset, this is the best I've read yet. ~~ Hal C F Astell