Strong Enough to Die

Caitlin Strong #1

by Jon Land

Caitlin Strong is a fifth-generation Texas Ranger, proud to wear the badge of her father and grandfather—until a deadly shoot-out along the Mexican border causes her to question her calling.

Five years later, Caitlin is still trying to purge herself of guilt from the day that ended her Ranger career. But a shattering discovery will reopen old wounds, and Caitlin’s renewed investigation into the truth behind the bloody desert firefight uncovers a terrifying plot that reaches into every home and threatens the very core of the country.

Her only hope for success—and survival—is to team up with Cort Wesley Masters, a deadly outlaw who has every reason to want her dead. But he also holds the key to the truth she desperately seeks in the anguished brain of an amnesiac torture victim.

Caitlin’s tormented quest for redemption takes her to a dark world, ranging from Washington to Bahrain to the wastelands of Mexico, as she finds that the strength to live comes from learning how to die.

Genres: Mystery, Thriller, Fiction, Mystery Thriller, Action, Suspense, Crime

352 pages, Hardcover

First published May 12, 2009

About the author

Jon Land is an American author of thriller novels and a screenwriter. He graduated from Brown University in 1979 Phi Beta Kappa and Magna cum Laude. He often bases his novels and scripts on extensive travel and research as well as a twenty-five year career in martial arts. He is an associate member of the US Special Forces and is an emeritus board member the International Thriller Writers. John currently lives in Providence, Rhode Island.

Reviews

[Malum · Rating 1 out of 5]

I did not like this at all. From some of the other reviews, I thought this would be a mile-a-minute thrill ride. It is not. Here are some problems:

It is very slow. Long stretches go by with nothing happening. The main characters even have time to argue about lattes and play video games.

The characters are all pretty one-dimensional. I didn't care about anyone in this book by the end.

The main character is a Mary Sue in the worst way. She is not only a total badass, but all the other characters instantly love/respect her, and/or they go out of their way to help her. There is literally a character in this book that wants to kill her for ruining his life, but he instantly falls in love with her when he sees her. Even the badass main bad guy is like "She's so amazing!". Yeesh.

The main plot was pretty thin and didn't pull me in at all.

I wanted to give this book a break and give it two stars, but I honestly couldn't think of a single good thing to say about it.

[Liz Barnsley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you to the author for the review copy.

A terrific action tale featuring Texas Ranger Caitlin Strong, an utterly fun reading experience and one that can take you out of reality for a while. It was highly improbably, spectacularly unlikely and I loved every minute of it. Twisty turny mayhem with flair.

I loved the characters, cort particularly, hey I've always preferred the bad boys. The plot is intriguing and the action is exciting and will keep you on the edge of your seat.

All in all thoroughly enjoyable and I look forward to more!

Happy Reading Folks!

[ElectricOutcast · Rating 5 out of 5]

So I have a history with this series, I started listening to the first book in July of 2016 while I was in San Antonio, Texas to see a Garth Brooks concert. My audiobook source was from GraphicAudio: A Movie in Your Mind, and from that volume on, I've been following the series ever since.

I'm not gonna sugar coat this volume but I am gonna be pragmatic and say that sometimes a writer can tell what's wrong with the writing style of a book with the first volume. Obviously there had been some bumps with pacing, world building, and chapter length if you were to read it like a regular book. But when you listen to this book on GraphicAudio, you don't ever get that problem, instead you get something as close to a movie as you can get.

To why I keep following this series, I consider Caitlin Strong and J.D. Robb's Eve Dallas to be very similar characters, to the point where I think Caitlin could pass as Eve's lost ancestor. I'm not holding my breath for Jon Land and J.D. Robb to team up and create a formal crossover, but one can dream. If you never listened to this series, I recommend doing so on GraphicAudio, you won't be disappointed.

[Sally · Rating 5 out of 5]

Caitlin Strong, a fifth generation Texas Ranger and her partner are pinned down by gunfire in what they assume is drug trafficking along the Texas-Mexico border. Although Caitlin does her best to get her partner to safety he doesn’t survive. As a result she leaves the Rangers to become a trauma crisis intervention counselor. While she is at the center her first patient is her husband, Peter Goodwin whom she thought died nine months earlier in Iraq. Corporate Moguls send their goons after her husband because of a program he is working on called Fire Arrow. If this information gets into the wrong hands it would make the current government surveillance seem like child’s play. Unfortunately her husband has been so severely tortured by his captors he is in a near vegetative state. Just when she thinks they will be killed, Cort Wesley Masters, a criminal that she sent to prison five years earlier steps in and saves their lives and he doesn't know why because he intended to kill Caitlin for putting him in prison.

Not wanting to give too much away about the plot of this novel, I have left a lot out that I would like to say, but I can tell you it has more twists and turns than a cork screw. There are some subtle hints of things that are happening in today’s government, but not to the point it becomes political reading. It had just enough action to keep me turning the pages and holding my breath, which in my opinion makes it a good novel. I thought Mr. Land was trying to portray Cort’s character as a tough guy gang leader by the gang related dialogue/slang. I get tired of books in which graphic language is every other word. When that happens I find myself skim reading as it usually doesn’t lend much relevance to the plot. However Mr. Land has kept it to a minimum, which is refreshing and unusual in this type of novel. Let me leave you with these thoughts…can a Texas Ranger learn to love a criminal and still remain a Ranger? Can God justify and forgive killing in situations other than war? I promise you this book will make thoughtful, interesting reading. It is not a book that you can skim read. It requires concentration and the end left me wanting more.

Disclosure: I was given this eBook by the Author, Jon Land. He did not require me to write a review, much less a favorable one. However I enjoyed the book and am happy to post my review. The opinions in this review are my own.

[Dale · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loud and strong, this book goes at it hard

William Shatner once commented that the results of his directorial efforts in Star Trek V were "loud". One could easily say the same thing about Jon Land's Strong Enough to Die.


Strong Enough To Die comes at you with a gunfight on the first page, has lots of gunfights throughout and ends up with guns and explosions as well.

Does it work?

Well, yeah.

This is not fine literature, mind you. It is loud, lock and load, over-the-top Texas Ranger action. There's some attempts at trying to tie in Bush administration anti-terrorist policies and discussions about living with the aftermath of violence but those get overwhelmed by the gunfire. But, that's okay because too much thinking about the internal incongruities of the text on these matters just spoils the fun.

It's the famed Texas Rangers and a bad guy who might be a good guy against the Mexican Mafia and an evil American super-corporation. Don't think too much, just enjoy the show.

http://dwdsreviews.blogspot.com/

[Abibliofob · Rating 4 out of 5]

Why did I wait so long to start reading about Texas Ranger Strong by Jon Land... I will never know but now that I have started I already before I finished this first book bought the next eight ones. This author knows how to tell a story and I am glad to add another strong woman to my reading list.

[Katharine Ott · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Strong Enough to Die" - written by Jon Land and published in 2009 by Forge, a trademark of Tim Doherty Associates. Caitlin Strong is a Texas Ranger, following in the footsteps of her father and grandfather, and in addition to this book being a solid mystery/thriller, it's also an ode to this proud group of protectors. This debut for Strong throws her into serious altercations with Mexican bad guys and also those born and bred in America, and she doesn't hesitate to do what's needed to get the job done. "Texas Rangers got a long history of straddling the law. I'm not talking about them necessarily committing illegal acts, much as forging alliances with bad men to go after ones who were worse." Land gives us a fast-paced plot filled with interesting characters and kicks off a popular series including #10, "Strong as Steel," published this year. Pages and pages of adventure!

[Bridgit · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was really into this story until the end where it jumped headfirst into the land of ridiculous. Overall, great action, acceptable mega-villain(s), strong(ha ha), flawed protagonist, excellent pacing. I definitely plan to read the next in the series. My only complaint was how it was so neatly wrapped up in the end by the unexpected character twist. Just don't buy it.

[Robyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

I might be done with this series despite being only two or three in... it rather grates on my nerves about "Ranger" this and Ranger that.. The dialogue is clumsy.

3 stars

Happy Reading!

[HornFan2 · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is my 2nd read of the book, my first rating was a 5, second rating gave it a 3 and due too much critical details to the storyline are lacking.

It's the only series from author Jon Land, that I've read and one of a few authors where I don't read everything they write. Being a Western reader, for me the Caitlin Strong series is a modern day Western, one of my favorite niches in Western where about lawmen and especially Texas Rangers.

I like Ranger Caitlin Strong, she's tough, damaged, got balls or perhaps it's due to feeling at times she's written as a man and missed in editing.

Feel the following is why I changed my previous rating. Especially due to the writing gave me the reader the impression that, 'Strong Enough to Die' written as if it's pieced together verse being one continuous story.

Probably because you have one too many storylines, that get intertwined together, really the reader needs to have an imagination to be able to add more details to the scenes, that the author didn't write and if you can do that, it makes the story better.

In all, I'll keep reading the Caitlin Strong series, it's not a bad read and worth it if you like reading Texas Ranger themed books.

[Dana Haynes · Rating 3 out of 5]

I finally got around to trying Jon Land's mystery series, because so many other people have raved about it. "Strong Enough to Die" is good but — I don't think this is a spoiler — you have to get past a stunning coincidence at the beginning of the story that sparks the plot. It's too incredible to believe, but if you get past that, the rest of the story is worth reading (and hey, the great big, wacky coincidence isn't in Act III, where it would be fatal). Give this one a try.

[Jenna · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 stars

i had some trouble with this one.
i started this one at work. i read a few pages at a time during my breaks at work. but i found when i got home, sat down w/out being interrupted & continued reading it was better.
this is a book i'd recommend reading in one sitting.

this series is not a happy go-lucky one. it leans to the darker more intense side of detective series.
(ie. dave robicheaux by james lee burke)

negative:
moves slow in beginning
switches back & forth b/w past & present, also multiple character points of view which i found annoying
and yeah, the first time it's mentioned that she's a legacy TX Ranger (ie. her pa & grandpa, etc) i got it. but to keep banging that nailpoint & mentioning over & over was too much
caitilin strong isn't a relatable or likeable character



positive:
once the action started, it moved quickly
caitlin strong-great strong (no pun intended) female character as a woman ranger
Cort-the chemistry oozes off the page from him (or it could be the result of all the romances i read w/hunky, macho, men w/an aura of mystery leads)


it was different & cool that the writer made the lead character a woman TX Ranger (there have been only about 5 in reality). and even though Cort was a killer/bad guy, i really liked him. in fact, i wanted to see how his dynamic w/caitlin would turn out so i kept reading.
and the plot did thicken about halfway thru.


i would recommend this to people who like more intense leads in their mysteries. also anyone who likes to read strong female characters.

[Ken Finlay · Rating 4 out of 5]

Recently released from prison after being jailed for the one crime he didn't commit Cort Wesley Masters plans to kill the Texas Ranger who tracked him down.
Turns out he'll have to join a queue!
Caitlin Strong, the latest in a long line of family members who were Texas Rangers, left the force after things went to hell when she pursued a personal vendetta.
Now she plans to work as a counsellor in a facility which cares for victims of torture.
As luck would have it her first patient is no other than her dead husband. Peter is a shell of a man, with no memories or personality. He's been tortured mentally and physically.
When she last saw him he was heading to Bahrain to work on a communications programme. Only, as events prove, he was working on something far more deadly for a mega-company with no scruples at all.
When Cort comes to kill Caitlin he ends up saving her life against heavily armed mercenaries.
It's the start of an unlikely friendship between a career criminal and a former officer of the law.
The author, John Land, makes the point that there is little difference between the two - just the laws that they break to achieve their aims.
The book is best as a straight thriller, less so when it examines good and evil through the lens of Kierkegaard.
I read “Strong Enough To Die” fast as it is the type of book that doesn't work if you think too much about the constant coincidences.
I did enjoy the recollections of old time Texas Rangers, in particular Earl Strong.
3.5 Stars, raised to 4 Stars.

[Nolan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Caitlin Strong was a fictional Texas Ranger until the night some presumed drug traffickers Pinned her down at the border, killing her partner and friend. Her husband, a computer/electronics specialist was in Iraq, or so he said. He never came back, and they never found a body. Caitlin had a memorial service and soon after that, quit the rangers. She found work as a counsellor for torture victims at one of only a handful of such centers in the nation. When she meets her first patient, she is horrified to learn that the guy is her presumed-dead husband.

So severely tortured had been Peter Goodwin that in his mind, he was dead. Caitlin realizes that if she is to bring Peter back from his self-imposed death, she must find the place where fellow Americans tortured him and bring back photographs to draw him back to reality. But the two had decided to dissolve their marriage after he returned from Iraq. As it turns out, he never went to Iraq, and his purpose in going was a computer chip whose impact would touch every home in the nation.

This is a hot-led fast-action book whose subplot I’ve not even touched. It is as strong as the main story, and the plots blend nicely to make for a great read if you can deal with some of the highly improbable things that happen. Under such a substantial shower of bullets, you’ll wonder how Caitlin can come away so unscathed so often. But that won’t dampen your pleasure in the book.

[David Freas · Rating 2 out of 5]

The bit of history about the Texas Rangers prefacing each section was interesting.

Short scenes and chapters – some barely a page long – made this book easy to pick up and put down. But they also broke up the flow of the story when they were only a continuation of the previous chapter or scene. The first three-hundred-and-some-odd pages of this almost four-hundred page book more stroll along than race (except for brief sprints where people are killing each other) before it really picks up over the last thirty or forty pages. Those pages really race by.

There were a lot of dead bodies in this book. I’m not sure all of them were necessary to the story, think some of them only were included to either up the body count or for shock value.

There were plenty of twists, too, but they didn’t qualify as surprises because they are almost expected in books in the genre and none of them were truly novel.

This is another book featuring a bad guy in the ‘Supervillain’ mold – one with the resources to do whatever he wants (including shaping the world to his vision) and the clout to get away with it. I always found those kinds of characters unbelievable because they seem too over the top.

Overall, this is a good book, a well-written story, but not good enough to put Land at the top of my ‘To Read’ list. I’ll read more books in the series if they come my way but won’t actively hunt them down.

[SassafrasfromAmazon · Rating 5 out of 5]

To date, this is the first of nine books in the Caitlin Strong series. I have read them all and hope there are more on the horizon. I don't think I have ever read a more kick-ass. bad-ass heroine. No fluff here. She is deadly. She is a fifth generation Texas Ranger. She goes her own way, flouts authority as she deems warranted. She gets the job done no matter what danger is involved--she is fearless. I love it!!!! Sometimes, a strong heroine grieves over choices she's made, but Caitlin Strong is decisive and wades in when others are too fearful to act. I absolutely love this series. Every book is full of action--never a dull moment. There are several other characters that are an integral part of her professional and personal life. They, too, are fascinating. I highly recommend. ( As an aside, at least 4 books in this series have been top picks in Romantic Times Magazine).

[Terry Steinborn · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first in a series that promises to be quite good. It is centered around a female Texas Ranger, the 5th generation of a Ranger family. She is very strong on action, perhaps less strong on subtlety. In this entry, she is involved in determining who was responsible for her husband's extreme torture, and teams with a gang killer when it is determined that their situations are intertwined. The take on the Mexican Mafia and, above all, an extremely dangerous super security US firm. The bullets fly throughout this adventure, piling bodies all over Texas and northern Mexico. Some of the socio-philosophical passages are suspect, but they don't distract much from the overall series of events that make up the story.

[Angie · Rating 5 out of 5]

What an enjoyable listen! I loved Caitlin. She wasn't an overly aggressive protagonist, nor was she a pushover. And Cort is awesome! I hope their relationship grows more. Cort's kids were a bonus, which is great for me because, usually, I wouldn't say I like a large amount of kid interaction in novels. I think it's primarily due to how the author writes their dialogue. Jon Land does a great job with the teenagers in this book. As for the voice actors, they did an excellent job, and it pulled me into the story. The only negative for me was the story plot. I didn't hate it, but it wasn't as interesting. I will definitely listen to the next one.

[Kathy · Rating 2 out of 5]

I think if I had read this Caitlin Strong book first, I wouldn't bother reading another one. The characters are like something out of a movie or even cartoon - very one-dimensional. Plus this book is about 100 pages too long. Having said that, I started reading this series with a later book in the series, and the characters had more depth. So I thought it would be good to read the first one. Truthfully, it really didn't add much. I don't think there's any reason these need to be read in order.

[Mojo Shivers · Rating 4 out of 5]

Aside from the pacing issues towards the end, this was a good yarn told about good and not-so-good people. The gunfights were crazy, the dialogue gritty and terse, and the overarching narrative plausible in this day and age. I like this as an introduction to the series and there’s plenty of room moving forward to explore all the dangling threads from this novel. I look forward to riding shotgun to the further yarns of Strong, Masters, and (perhaps) Paz.

[J.C. Brennan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Caitlin is an intelligent new hero—a Texas Ranger to be exact.
She is resilient, independent, complicated and, as most her life isn’t perfect so she can be a tortured female. Her backstory has several subordinate plots wittily knitted together in a gripping story.
Action, adventure, suspense, and some aggression threw in to keep it interesting, Caitlin Strong keeps you turning the page.

[Robert Scott · Rating 4 out of 5]

Finished 09/07/2011. Caitlan discovers that the husband she thought had died in Iraq is still alive but has been tortured until he doesn't think he exists. She teams with Cort Wesley Masters (whom she had put in prison) and a Venezuelan enforcer to bring down both a Mexican Mafia overlord and an American industrialist with delusions of grandeur.

[Gloria Zak · Rating 4 out of 5]

A friend suggested this series to me so I decided to start from the beginning. You have to love Caitlyn Strong. A Texas Ranger no less. With a history of violence. This story has so many twists and turns. It is amazing. Some details don’t hold up these many years later but loved it all. Will continue with the series

[Derrick · Rating 2 out of 5]

I didn't realize that this was taking place in present day, so that turned me off a bit from the beginning. The story itself was ok. The partner of Caitlin voice actor was amazing. I'm grateful to get to try this with GA, but not sure I'll be going back to read the rest of the series for the time being.

[Pachyderm Bookworm · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first in a series of. novels featuring Caitlin Strong, whose former partner was killed alongside her in a battle along the Mexican border involving drug traffickers, forcing her to terminate employment with the Texas Rangers, while at the same time learning the distinction of becoming the very first female Texas Ranger altogether.

[Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

Decent enough action-thriller...story of a female Texas Ranger unwinding the mysteries surrounding the disappearance of her computer expert husband...pretty dark, but interesting characters along the way...I might try another

[Steve Payne · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well, you certainly can't complain about a lack of action. A little bit of reality sprinkled in would have been nice though. I generally liked Caitlin & Cort's characters but it was the whole thing about making a Rambo movie seem realistic that bothered me.

[Sally · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great start to the Texas Ranger Caitlin Strong series. Fast paced, a lot of action, intrigue and menace, with a well-developed compelling cast of characters. Deals with some very serious issues. I don’t know how it took me so long to start this series but I will be catching up quickly. Very enjoyable read that I highly recommend.

[Nai Wang · Rating 5 out of 5]

Caitlin Strong, what an amazing series this was. I binge read 9 books over the course of a month and loved every minute of it. A strong female protagonist with a Strong history and amusing side characters, I highly recommend this series to anyone looking for a fun western set in today’s timeline.

[Ben · Rating 1 out of 5]

Disappointing

Thin characters and a transparent plot written with a dull primary pencil. I won't be reading any sequels. Caitlin Strong is very weak.