Means to an End

Lori Wheeler’s sister Penny died tragically in the car accident that left Lori with scarring, both physical and emotional, but she was even more traumatized by the travesty that the prosecutor called a trial. The legal system set her sister’s killer free, so how can Lori continue to work at her job for the Department of Justice when she no longer believes in what she’s doing? So she scrapes together enough money for a trip to a resort to paint, to find herself and to clear her head, and it’s there that she meets someone who jogs her memory...who is this man?

Undercover agent Rand McCormick is trying his best to break the area’s drug smuggling ring, but doesn’t plan on running into Lori, who could complicate matters for him or even make him lose this case. He considers letting her in on his plans, but the leak at the Justice Department could do him in, so he keeps his plans to himself. But when Lori becomes suspicious of him and his creepy “friends”, she reports him...and then the game of cat and mouse begins.

Means to an End is a wonderfully written book of romance and suspense; it expertly walks the line between these genres and dealing readers a powerful and interesting story. Lori has lost her innocence and her belief in justice; the guilt over her sister’s death, and her role in it, haunts her. Rand is in a quandary, torn between duty and truth as he falls deeper and deeper in love with Lori and her shattered idealism. Carol McPhee does a great job of torqueing up the tension in this storyline and in the realism of her characters’ reactions to the situations in which she places them. Join Lori and Rand as they take life’s biggest gamble – trusting a stranger – in Means to an End.

Reviewed by: Michelle