barrel proof Archives | Never Hollowed By The Stare

Agents Irish and Whiskey: Barrel Proof – Layla Reyne

FBI agents Aidan “Irish” Talley and Jameson “Whiskey” Walker can’t get a moment’s peace. Their hunt for the terrorist Renaud seems to be nearing an end, until a fire allows him to slip through their fingers—and puts Jamie’s life in danger. When Jamie is nearly killed, Aidan learns how many forms loss can take.

Aidan says I love you just moments before learning that Jamie’s been keeping a devastating secret about Aidan’s late husband. How quickly trust and love can go up in flames. When Aidan requests a solo undercover assignment, Jamie hopes Aidan will find a way to forgive him.

But the explosions are far from over. Aidan’s cover lands him in the heart of the terrorist’s conspiracy, and Jamie will have to put his life, his career and his freedom on the line to save the man who has become his entire world. Partners, always is a promise he intends to keep.

After meh ratings on Single Malt and Cask Strength, Barrel Proof, managed to rack up three stars. This is mostly thanks to the narrator Tristan James, who did a superb job wringing out the emotions in that dramatic scene after Cuba. He’s also awesome with accents, doing everything from Bostonian, Irish, Southern and Czech.

Barrel Proof is all about the end game. Here, we finally meet the notorious and mysterious Renaud who was out for revenge against Silicon Valley execs and financial bigwigs. This is also where we get the most action, starting with that explosive Cuban confrontation and ending with a suspenseful kidnapping situation where everybody had to pray for Mel. Because the book was case-focused, there were less annoying moments where Aidan and Jamie acted ridiculously emotional and more of them doing their jobs.

Mel, Danny and Jamie’s bestfriend, Cam were all in on the action. Lauren, with her hacking skills and quirks, was a great addition to the team. Nick the prosecutor also had major pagetime/airtime here and he was not the asshole they made him out to be in the second book. In fact, he turned out to be a really good ally and an interesting character too so maybe a Nick book please? We could all do with more of Nick’s sartorial polish.

Overall, this series garnered high reviews from fans but for me, there were a lot of unnecessary angst and drama, mediocre storytelling and long drawn out cases that could have been solve faster had everybody been as smart as they purport to be.

Rating:
3 Stars – not exactly setting my world on fire but I liked it

Soundtrack: Bonfire Heart
Artist: James Blunt
Album: Moon Landing

(source: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34473508-barrel-proof)