Intervention by Terri Blackstock

Emily Covington has gotten herself in trouble before with her drug addictions, but now she's hit the bottom. Her mother, in a desperate attempt to save her life, sent her with a paid interventionist to a drub rehab center. But things went wrong and her interventionist was somehow murdered and Emily herself was kidnapped. Dragging her son along with her, Barbara Covington is now frantically trying to find her missing daughter before something worse happens to her, all while trying to refute speculations that Emily murdered the interventionist herself. Police detective Kent Harlan wants to get to the bottom of the case himself, but is having a hard time doing so with Barbara constantly meddling in his business. Many things about the strange case do not add up-including motive and ability. Whoever the killer is, they're still on the loose, ready to kill anyone who stands in their way or who has information to implicate them. In all the madness, Barbara and Kent are forced to evaluate the way they've been living their own lives before moving any further.

Terri Blackstock has written another book with good characters, a good case, and a bad end. One would think that after ten years of writing, she would have broken this vicious cycle by now. Perhaps Terri Blackstock is the one in need of intervention.

Barbara is one of the best leads of a suspense novel I have ever read about. Her constant meddling in the case adds an interesting flavor to the book that it probably needed. Emily is no saint, and there are plenty of reasons to pin the murder on her. Kent is no perfect male lead, but his character has room for improvement. The villain is not a mindless killing machine but instead has a good purpose and reason for what they do. There are few things Terri needs to improve regarding characters. She just needs to stay the course and not waver from her establishment as a good character developer.

The case is not simple or straightforward. Few authors can write a case like Terri Blackstock because of her ability to withhold important information from the reader until the right time. Intervention also brings an interesting issue to light that not many people want to discuss. Along with this are the usual elements-twists, turns, and false suspects. Also as usual, Terr Blackstock writes a cheesy showdown scene in which all "good" characters come out unscathed. However, there are several issues not addressed at the end, making for a more tasteful end than usual.

All in all, Terri Blackstock is a very consistent author-consistently almost five stars. However, this is not a bad thing because Terri brings her own thing to the Christian fiction table. That's something that most authors cannot claim.

4.5 stars