Review: Devil’s Due (Red Letter Days #2) – Rachel Caine

Devil's Due by Rachel Caine
Series: Red Letter Days #2
Published by Harlequin UK on 1 February 2013
Genres: Contemporary
Pages: 297
Source: Netgalley
Buy on Amazon

Lucia and Jazz both thought they would be able to work independently once they started their private 'I' company, even if they got the cash to do it from an obscure organization. At first, they thought their work was only for good when they went on to do what the Red Letter told the to do - however, after people died on their watch the two women had trouble believing in th epeople who had gotten them together.When Jazz's old partner is finally released from prison, he and Lucia start a little something, although McCarthy seems like he can't make up his mind - he goes from hot to cold and back again faster than Lucia can blink. When she finds out why that is, she takes it in stride; just as she does with most everything that happens to her.

*I received a free ARC of Devil’s Due from Harlequin UK via Netgalley in exchange of an honest review*

Devil’s Due is even better than Devil’s Bargain, with not only one, but two strong female protagonists! I also loved where the story went, both with the mystery of the psychics and with the way Jazz and Lucia interacted with each other and the other characters.

As McCarthy is liberated from prison, only Lucia is there to greet him, because James and Lucia made sure Jazz was far away from the courthouse during the hearing. To keep her safe – or so they convinced themselves. When Jazz realizes that McCarthy is no longer in prison, the first thing she wants to do is to find him, to let him know how happy she is that he was finally cleared of murder. She quickly understands that something is going on between her ex-partner and her current partner, her keen sense of observation never slowing down.

Lucia is so jumpy because of things that has happened recently that she even hires one of her old friends to be a bodyguard at the office, to make sure noone can get into the garage and tamper with her or Jazz’s car, and also to keep unwanted people out of the building. And you can’t call it paranoia if someone is really out to get you, right?

Devil’s Due is fast paced, and our strong protagonists have a lot of hard decisions to make in this volume of Red Letter Days. As they start to doubt that they are always working on the side of good when they open a red letter, they start sending them back to the sender – unopened. But not fast enough! Lucia opens a UPS envelope that contains a red letter, and something that looks suspiciously like anthrax. The whole office is on lock-down while one of Lucias old colleagues from the FBI is coming to check what’s going on. Manny is the one they get to do all the tests to see if it was indeed anthrax, and his house is getting a little crowded with people needing to hide out in a literal fortress.

Lucia and Jazz never know who is going to show up when – either with a red letter or to kill them. This makes it very difficult for both of them to trust anyone outside of their very small circle of friends and business associates. As the going gets tougher, and Lucia disappears while starting to be very sick, Jazz has to make sure that all their problems will be solved without either of them dying in the process. And she doesn’t really care anymore what she has to do to make sure the people she cares about stay safe.

Devil’s Due is very well written, the mysteries are almost impossible to solve, the narrator is always one step ahead of the reader! And at some point, even I started to doubt characters and their loyalties. An excellent read, strong characters, even the secondary characters are well fleshed out, there really are no two-dimensional ones. The premise is very interesting, and the execution is awesome.

 

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