About the Book
Book: Justified Means
Author: Chautona Havig
Genre: Christian Suspense
Release date: January 7, 2013
How could she not be terrified?
When Erika Polowski is abducted from her bed and held captive without explanation, she has one goal. Get away before they kill her.
Keith Auger’s job as an agent is to keep Erika safe—even if it means keeping her locked in an abandoned cabin in the middle of nowhere. At gunpoint.
What should be a routine “involuntary extraction” goes south when someone finds out where they’re hiding. Add to that a coworker with a chip on her shoulder and too many unexplained “accidents,” and it all adds up to one unlikely, terrifying explanation.
There’s a mole in The Agency.
He’s promised to protect her, but can Erika trust a man whose job it is to hold people against their wills? Does his deep faith make it any better or just a whole lot creepier.
And just who wants Erika dead anyway?
The Agency Files: They’ll do whatever it takes to keep their clients safe. Period.
Grab this first book in the series today.
My Thoughts:
I first read Justified Means a few years ago. I remember turning pages about as fast as I could, to find out what happened to Erika. Would she be all right in the end, or would whoever was after her catch up? Who was supplying information of her whereabouts to the wrong people? When I reread the book for this review tour, I knew she had escaped, so didn’t “have” to read so fast, and I enjoyed all the little details that Chautona included.
Now, for the review I wrote the first time I read this book: As much as I love Chautona Havig’s books, I never read any of The Agency Files until recently. Now I’m wondering why I waited so long! When I started reading Justified Means, I could hardly make myself put it down. The suspense was hard to bear. And then, I got about 47% of the way through (from memory), and it seemed like the climax had been reached. I wondered what the rest of the book could possibly be about…but I soon found out that it was a false climax. There was a lot more to the story still, and the suspense got even worse.
Erika woke up suddenly in the middle of the night with duct tape around her mouth, zip ties around her legs, and a strange man carrying her out of her house. What in the world was happening? He assured her that there was nothing to fear, but who wouldn’t be terrified when something like that happened? And then he told her that her life was in danger, but he refused to tell her why, and that she was being hidden away in a safe place until the danger was past. What was going on?
Gradually, Erika learned to trust Keith, her abductor, and appreciate the work that The Agency did. But, could they really keep her safe from the criminals who were after her? And why did those people want her life, anyway? And, how should she deal with the other people who took their turns guarding her—especially the woman who was jealous of Erika’s friendship with Keith? There was also this matter of Keith’s faith. She had never met anyone who had a relationship with God like he did.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I don’t read very many suspense books, but this one was great! It kept me on the edge of my seat the whole way through—and as I mentioned above, I started to relax about halfway through, only to realize that the problem wasn’t anywhere near solved yet! The one thing that made me a bit uncomfortable was the justification of lying in order to save people’s lives. Corrie ten Boom was quoted as an example, but the way I remember reading The Hiding Place she didn’t out-and-out lie, as the characters in Justified Means did. I also wondered about Keith’s use of a gun—but then I found out what it actually was!
Finally, this review is written, so now I can allow myself to read the second book in the series! It’s been hard to wait.
I received a free copy of this book from the author, and these are my honest thoughts about it.
About the Author:
Chautona Havig lives in an oxymoron, escapes into imaginary worlds that look startlingly similar to ours and writes the stories that emerge. An irrepressible optimist, Chautona sees everything through a kaleidoscope of It’s a Wonderful Life sprinkled with fairy tales. Find her at chautona.com and say howdy—if you can remember how to spell her name.
More From Chautona:
Isn’t That Idea a Bit Crazy and Farfetched?
Black ops teams. They’re the stuff of TV shows and movies. I have no doubt such things exist—military groups that have to exist and work outside the normal scheme of things to give those who answer to the public plausible deniability or some such thing.
Then one of those “what if?” questions hit me. They’re an occupational hazard, those “what if?” questions. They appear out of nowhere and start crazy thoughts in your head. Ones like, “What if a private company existed to do things that couldn’t be tied to the government in any way—no money exchanged?”
What if sometimes a protection company had to work outside the law in order to do the job they needed to do? What if that meant they might just have to abduct someone to save his or her life?
Those of course led to the granddaddy of all questions. What if that someone didn’t appreciate being saved?
The Agency was born and with it their motto: Whatever it takes.
That’s what they’ll do to keep their clients safe. Only the wealthy can afford their services. Some of the poorest of the poor receive them. But it always boils down to one primary goal. Protect their clients at all costs.
Even if the client doesn’t want protection.
Is the idea a bit crazy and far-fetched? Yeah… probably. But I wouldn’t be surprised to discover there are similar agencies out there, and if there are, I hope they save lives with the sort of compassion my guys have.
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