-In a story that goes at a breakneck speed, we follow the first in a series of books about Gia Santelli. In a prequel, we had learned that she was a 23 year old Italian American, whose parents had been very successful, but who died in a fire years before. She has only one brother who was just a little younger than her, but he had a violent streak. The two of them never got along, even to the current day. Her only other family, though not by blood, was her godfather, Vito, who was a friend of her parents from Sicily.
-Gia and her brother have more money than they could spend, but the lives of each of the siblings are empty. While Gia’s brother, Christopher has left home and wanted nothing to do with his sister or Vito, other than to get money, Gia realized that she was on a path of self destruction and took a form of karate so that she would be more grounded. Though the training does help, her depression, because of the death of her parents, still led her to be a heavy drinker at times.
-Gia learns that her brother has been killed, and also discovers that her parents’ death, which was thought to be from a fire, was actually a double homicide. It appears that she’ll be next, and the worst of it is that all evidence points to Vito, her godfather, as the one who is going after her.
-She knows that she must first survive in order to have any chance of avenging the deaths of her family, until she can determine if it is her godfather who is behind this. But as she continues to try to evade whoever is coming after her, she finds that people that come in contact with her, whom she befriends, also meet their deaths, and she doesn’t know who to trust. It’s her karate training, though, that allows her to keep her cool, as she must use her wits to not only stay alive, but find out who is behind this. Along the way, there are also secrets that her mother withheld from her, which are now revealed to her, and which will change her life.
-This is the type of book that makes you want to finish it in one sitting, and the choice of a spoiled rich girl like Gia as a flawed heroine, is a departure from the typical flawed cop character. This is a very promising start to this new series.