PUBLICATION DATE: JULY 1, 2011

lle Westmore knew the Desolation Wilderness of the Sierra Nevada Mountains better than any other pilot.  Less than two years earlier she had unsuccessfully searched the area for almost a month looking for her father’s downed plan.  Now with a massive fire in the same area, she’s asked to fly crews into a forest filled with bitter memories.

Silas Kent was an experienced Smokejumper but known to be a little reckless with his life.  A few years earlier, he and Elle had a romantic relationship that he fled when things got more serious than he could handle.  With the fire raging in the Sierra Nevadas, they are brought together in an effort to control the massive inferno that’s threatening nearby structures.  However, both soon learn that the fire is not their biggest enemy, but rather a cache of gold long forgotten deep inside the forest and the men looking for it.

I thoroughly enjoyed Shawn Grady’s last book, Tomorrow We Die.  It had a nice tight plot and smooth easy style that was surprising in a second book.  Needless to say, I’ve looked forward to this new book, Falls Like Lightning.  It has the same qualities I enjoyed in the previous book, but with a new setting which would make the perfect backdrop for a series.  I don’t think that’s in the plans, but seriously, smokejumpers would make a great occupation for a whole series of books.  I’ve read fireman, policeman, military, pilots, FBI, CIA, medical, but with its high risk and thrilling action, smokejumpers could easily take its place among the underpaid, underappreciated occupations of heroes in fiction.  Just a thought.

There was a bit of a learning curve with this book.  Grady does a nice job of walking the reader through the new terminology and job of smokejumpers with a great action filled opening events.  The early chapters work well at pulling the reader into the personality of the characters while at the same time offering a hint of the suspense to come.

Following a strong opening, there’s a bit a lag in the action and for a while I was wondering where the story was going.  Time was spent pulling Silas and Elle back together as well as filling in some of the backstory for both of their lives.  It was interesting, but I was seriously trying to figure out how Grady was going to fill the remaining 200 pages with just smokejumper adventures and Silas and Elle’s romance.  The main conflict was not introduced until surprisingly late, which is still somewhat puzzling.  The storyline concerning the gold could have been set up earlier allowing for steeper suspense and a deeper more fleshed out conflict.  When this part of the book started to come together, it was fantastic and I completely enjoyed it, but it did feel like it was pushed late into the story which caused it to feel unnecessarily shortened.

I have very much enjoyed Shawn Grady’s books.  He chooses excellent topics and occupations while creating thrilling adventures.  The characters are strong and the style is easy to read.  Oh, and I love the titles.  Falls Like Lightning is such a catchy title.  Anyway, this is another highly enjoyable, suspense novel by a very talented author.  I look forward to seeing what’s next.