Hot Ice: A Novel [Mass Market Paperback]

Taylor Kincaid is a jewel thief, the best in the business. She has been after the famous Blue Star diamonds for a short while now. The man who "acquired" them for his wife is supposed to currently have them at his terrorist compound in South Africa, within a special safe that could not be cracked. Taylor does not find the diamonds. By the time she is in the "uncrackable" safe they are gone. However, she takes everything else. She has no clue that she inadvertently pockets valuable disks filled with security codes.

Huntington "Hunt" St. John is a top T-FLAC operative. He and his team specialize in counter terrorism. They desperately need the disks Taylor stole from José Morales's safe. They also need her expertise. Morales is the head of "Mano del Dios". For many years he has prepared for a special event. One he believes God has chosen him for. Friday, October thirteenth, is D-day unless Hunt and his team can stop him. First they must capture Taylor, then "convince" her to help. Morales has a nuclear missile ready. In order for the team to reach it and deactivate it, they must live through seven levels of deadly traps. Without Taylor's cooperation, it is impossible. With it, the chances of success are still slim, but it is better than nothing. If they fail, millions will die.

***** There is not really much romance at all in this Romantic Suspense. The two main characters are attracted to each other, but by the end of the story I, as the reader, did not feel that they could possibly be in true love. Most of the novel is dedicated to capturing Taylor and convincing her to help. The author did an excellent job on that, as well as, on the seven levels. Fans of the games or movies in the "Tomb Raider" series will be enthralled! Highly recommended. *****

Reviewed by Detra Fitch of Huntress Reviews.

José Morales is a madman. The head of the terrorist organization "Mano del Dios" he is filled with religious fervor and thinks God has called upon him, in person, to save the world by destroying all who disagree with his ideas. He has been illegally amassing a fortune in jewels and artwork, keeping it safe in a super secret underground mine, a place where he has also stashed the means to achieve world domination.

Huntington St. John is an agent in a secret anti-terrorist organization called T-FLAC. He is intent upon finding out Morales's method for his intended day of wrath. To do that he needs the set of computer disks with the answers to the hidden cave of destruction that is locked in Morales's impossible to open, super secure safe in his home. He and his colleagues find out that there is one person in the world with the expertise they need to break into the safe. A woman named Taylor Kincaid

Taylor Kincaid is a highly talented jewel thief and safecracker of many years. Since she was a teen, she had been teaching herself the art of stealing from internationally know miscreants, people who have made their fortunes making off with other people's riches. She had already made her way into Morales's safe looking to steal the spectacular Blue Star diamonds, but they weren't there, so she cleaned everything out of the safe and mailed them to herself. She had no idea that there was a set of important computer disks there too.

Huntington St. John manages to find Taylor, but she had already been arrested and beaten into blindness. Their introduction wasn't a civil one, but along with the dawn Taylor's sight returns, and both their eyes were opened to the magnetic feelings of attraction that sizzles between them. Taylor escapes before Huntington can explain why the free world needs her help along with the computer disks. A worldwide chase ensues and the hunt between the two begins!

HOT ICE is mainly a scorching romance in a setting of international intrigue, terrorism and high class heists. Chapter upon chapter is dedicated to the amorous feelings between Hunt and Taylor, all while these two people are trying to disavow any of it. But the strength of their passion overpowers them each and every time they are together and it always ends in regrets.

Fans of adventures will also be interested in HOT ICE. It manages to outdo Indiana Jones in a few categories, as the underground mine had been fashioned by Morales to reenact Dante's rings of Hell with the use of special dangerous effects along with masterly created robotics. Here male and female members of the leading couple are extraordinarily gifted in their chosen fields. They both manage to think faster than all the others around to solve problems.

You can tell that Cherry Adair did her homework. Seven of Dante's rings of hell are described along with Morales's recitation of pertinent psalms and proverbs. Also she goes to great pains to explain how super safes work, along with a detailed history and how they can, only with extraordinary skill and luck, be opened.

If you're in the mood for passion, sex and romance blended with phenomenally perilous adventures, where the survival of the world is at stake, read HOT ICE.

When it comes to jewel theft, Taylor Kincaid is the best--and Huntington (Hunt) St. John needs the best. The private anti-terrorist organization he works for has learned that super-Christian terrorist Jose Morales has hidden the codes for his secret base in a safe so secure that it's supposed to be unbreakable. Hunt needs someone to get him those disks so badly, he's willing to break a known criminal out of prison to help.

Taylor responds to Hunt physically, but that doesn't mean she trusts him. She needs the diamonds she stole from Morales--and isn't convinced by Hunt's story that he works for the good-guys. Isn't that what everyone says?

When Taylor escapes him, Hunt is desperate. Time is running out, and Morales plans a strike far bigger than 9/11, wiping out the entire city of Las Vegas in his efforts to eliminate sin and bring about the kingdom of god. It doesn't help that he gets excited every time he gets close to Taylor--everyone in the T-FLAC private anti-terrorist organization knows that women are the curse. Still, the two need to work together, which isn't a problem when they learn that they really are on the same side.

Heading off the threat sends them into a reconstructed mine in South Africa--a mine that has been transformed into the seven circles of Dante's Hell. If they'd still had the codes, it would have been merely difficult--but with only two of the five disks, they rely on Taylor's safecracking and Hunt's macho dere-doing to survive.

Author Cherry Adair's fast-paced style and steamy sensuality propell the reader through the story. I found myself, however, distracted from the story by the improbability of Adair's scenario and by the drawn-out misunderstandings between Hunt and Taylor--especially that at the end of the story. Morales's scheme for 'world domination' is hard to understand, but not nearly as hard as was a second terrorist group (the Black Rose)'s plan. The multibillion dollar transformation of a mine into the seven circles of Hell is interesting and consistent with the crazy but Christian Morales, but the whole disk and code thing didn't seem to work. If Morales needed the codes and didn't have them all, how was he supposed to get his army of thugs into the pit to face Hunt and his T-FLAC buddies? And how did the Black Rose terrorists get down?

HOT ICE had a lot of potential and it's definitely worth the read--but Adair missed too many chances to make the adventure and the romance more compelling and give the reader a bigger payoff for an oversized suspension of disbelief.

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