Review: Overkill by Sandra Brown

 

Overkill by Sandra Brown

Publication Date: August 16th 2022 by Grand Central Publishing

Pages: 416

Source: Publisher 

Rating: ★★★★

Links: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Kobo | Goodreads

My Thoughts:

To the outside world Zach is a washed-up star NFL player, but he’s happy to live out of the spotlight. He was a star quarterback and MVP until he married Rebecca, a glitzy party girl. The marriage was a train wreck and short-lived, but unfortunately her partying ways ended tragically, and Zach was left as medical conservator when she was declared unresponsive and in a vegetative state. Zach felt he was in no position to take her off life support after her parent bitterly contested his rights since he wasn’t her husband at the time.

Four years later Prosecutor Kate Lennon shows up at his door when Rebecca’s convicted attacker, Eban Clarke, has been released early and she needs a way to put him away for good. The only way to do that is with new charges, like murder if Rebecca is taken off life support. Zach wants nothing to do with the whole situation.

Eban Clarke is a rich, spoiled, no-good, sociopath without a speck of remorse for all he’s done. When he hears Kate and Zach may be cooking up a way to send him to prison again, he sets his own plans in motion. This guy was a piece of work and his POV filled me with dread!

Of course, there’s a romance, ill-advised because of the circumstances, but the heat between Zach and Kate was hard to ignore. Stolen moments of passion are interspersed in between looking for a way to put Eban away for good, and trying to stay alive. Never a dull moment! 

I’m always sucked right in from the first page, as I was with Overkill, clamoring for more with her cliffhanger-like chapter endings. Overkill was fast-paced, full of action and rounded out with a steamy romance. Zach was Ms. Brown’s kind of standard hero, a man’s man, and a little bit of an asshole at the beginning, and I loved him! Kate was a likable heroine, smart with a passion for justice, which I understood once getting to know her background.

Sandra Brown is one of my all-time favorite mystery/romantic suspense writers! I eagerly look forward to her new releases, but I’ve gone back and read and enjoyed a lot of her back list, too. Highly recommended!

4 Stars

Book Description:

Former Super Bowl MVP quarterback Zach Bridger hasn’t seen his ex-wife, Rebecca Pratt, for some time—not since their volatile marriage imploded—so he’s shocked to receive a life-altering call about her. Rebecca has been placed on life support after a violent assault, and he—despite their divorce—has medical power-of-attorney. Zach is asked to make an impossible choice: keep her on life support or take her off of it. Buckling under the weight of the responsibility and the glare of public scrutiny, Zach ultimately walks away, letting Rebecca's parents have the final say.
 
Four years later, Rebecca's attacker, Eban—the scion of a wealthy family in Atlanta—gets an early release from prison. The ludicrous miscarriage of justice reeks of favoritism, and Kate Lennon, a brilliant state prosecutor, is determined to put him back behind bars. Rebecca’s parents have kept her alive all these years, but if her condition were to change—if she were to die—Eban could be retried on a new charge: murder.
 
It isn’t lost on Zach that in order for Eban to be charged with Rebecca’s murder, Zach must actually be the one to kill her. He rejects Kate’s legal standpoint but can’t resist their ill-timed attraction to each other. Eban, having realized the jeopardy he’s in, plots to make certain that neither Zach nor Kate lives to see the death of Rebecca—and the end of his freedom.