Book Review: Blackout (A Riley Covington Thriller Book 3) by Jason Elam and Steve Yohn

This is a fast-paced Christian suspense thriller.
Blackout (A Riley Covington Thriller Book 3)
by Jason Elam and Steve Yohn

Series: A Riley Covington Thriller (Book 3)
Paperback: 416 pages
Publisher: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc. (January 1, 2010)
ISBN-13: 978-1414331720
Genre: Christian, Suspense Thriller
My Rating: 4.25 of 5.0

Riley Covington is still reeling from his father’s brutal murder when he learns he’s been traded. Meanwhile, the counterterrorism division has detected a plot to detonate electromagnetic pulse bombs that could leave the U.S. without power, communications, and transportation—right down to dropping planes out of the sky. CTD scrambles to stop the attacks, but they run out of time. Amid the fallout, Riley, Scott, Skeeter, and CTD must regroup to make sure the second bomb doesn’t reach its destination.

Review:
Riley is a professional linebacker and a young man who served a tour of duty in Afghanistan. Then he became a hero fighting a terrorist threat on his own turf in American with his special ops team. (Book 1: Monday Night.) The team dealt with a second wave of terrorists that strike directly at Riley and his loved ones. (Book Two: Blown Coverage.) Riley is surprised and confused when he is traded from his beloved Colorado team to a team in Washington, D.C.

Before Riley can even get settled in with the new team he is injured. That doesn’t stop his new bosses from using him for promotional purposes. The situation also intrigues a female friend from back home who sees Riley as a way to journalistic stardom. She is prepared to push her career forward even if it exposes Riley’s covert operations.

Once again Riley’s football career is interrupted as he is drawn back into the special ops team to help track down terrorists who have stolen nuclear weapons. Riley and his team have previously briefed the Whitehouse on the dangers on an EMP strike. Now that threat seems imminent if Riley and the other warriors don’t stop the terrorists.

This is a fast-paced thriller with danger and consequences resulting from an EMP strike over a major city. I enjoyed meeting the team Riley works with, including his personal security guard, his superior, the geeky, genius computer tech “Gooey”, the doctor, Khadi, and others. Khadi holds Riley’s interest, but he has to keep his distance because he is a strong Christian and she is not a believer. This creates conflicts and problems they both are aware of. There are other Christian friends from Riley’s Colorado football team who end up with challenges of their own during this adventure (or misadventure) as they find themselves in the city after all power goes out.

I had a little trouble sorting through the characters at first and this might not have been a problem if I had read books 1 and 2. Still, most of my ladies book club really enjoyed this and a couple will get the other books. I picked up the boxed set so I could go back if I wanted and have book four too. I recommend this to reader’s who like action packed Christian Thrillers. You might want to start with book 1.

Source: Print 2017 for Ladies Book Club; I picked up the boxed set on Kindle 2019.  I’m going to count this towards 2019TBR goal.