Product Description

After losing her mother to a vigilante killer, Terri Mitchell has dedicated her life to justice. Working covertly as a new agent for the Bureau of American Defense agency, she's consulting with the New Orleans Police Department to bust an organized crime ring suspected of funding terrorism. But when rumors surface of a phantom ghost terrorizing and killing the very people she's investigating, she's suspicious.

Nathan Drake has spent his life protecting his family, the only thing that matters to him...until the most feared drug lord in the southeast takes everything Nathan holds dear. Now he's a man on a mission with nothing to lose. He figures he only needs to stay alive long enough to protect the innocent lives the killers are out to destroy.

As the two of them seek a similar goal by different means, Terri and Nathan are drawn deep into an evil underbelly that cuts through all levels of society. Now two people who have no reason to trust must trust in each other or die. And if they die, a deadly attack will be unleashed on thousands of innocent people.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #129112 in Books
• Published on: 2009-05-19
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• 432 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9781416595649
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

About the Author
SHERRILYN KENYON, aka Kinley MacGregor, is the author of numerous New York Times bestsellers, including Born to be BAD and BAD Attitude. There are more than ten million copies of her books in print. She lives with her family near Nashville, Tennessee. Visit her website at www.dailyinquisitor.com/sherrilyn.

DIANNA LOVE is a RITA award-winning author who started writing while working over a hundred feet in the air creating marketing projects for Fortune 500 companies. When not plotting out her latest romantic action-adventure, she travels the country on a motorcycle to research new locations. She lives in the Atlanta, Georgia, area with her wonderful husband and a tank of unruly saltwater fish named after celebrities. Visit www.DiannaLoveSnell.com.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Terri Mitchell studied the naked male lying before her once more. Straight black hair fell loosely around his baby- smooth face. He'd shaved recently. Those chiseled lips were too enticing and perfect, as if shaped by a master sculptor.

How many women had enjoyed this body and those lips? Been pleasured by that captivating mouth?

And why should she care? Terri tamped down on her female interest. She was a professional and shouldn't consider things like this guy's social life or his lean, muscular body, but men didn't come much better packaged than this one. All she'd seen so far was his upper body since the cotton sheet covered his lower half.

Using her pen, she lifted the white cloth to see if there was anything else she could glean from this inspection beyond the bullet hole in his forehead.

Not really, unless she wanted to add "well endowed" to her notes. Such a waste of one fine- looking male.

Probably not the Fat Tuesday this guy had expected when he got up this morning.

"I like the highlights, the more blonde look. That new?" The radio- announcer- smooth baritone asking that question from behind her belonged to a man she hadn't planned to see again. At least not yet.

Terri yanked her pen away. The sheet fell back into place over the corpse's toned midsection. She swung around to face DEA Special Agent Robert Brady and cursed silently for almost getting caught ogling a body.

"Hello, Brady."

"Nice to see you, Terri. Look good. I like the extra meat on your bones."

"Is that a polite way of saying I'm overweight?" She used to worry about trying to reach a dress size in the single digits. Not anymore. Surviving a nearly fatal attack had put her priorities in order. Stressing over the scale was in her past. If she could just put other things behind her as easily.

Like Brady's smug face.

"I said you looked good. Can't you take a compliment?"

Maybe, if it had come from someone else, but Brady liked his women thin, long- legged, and busty. At five- six she'd never met the long- legged qualification and nothing in her wardrobe had been designed for a slim body. She'd assumed Brady made an allowance when they'd dated because of her chest. Most of the men in her life jumped to the ridiculous assumption large breasts equaled an easy lay. Men had such simple guidelines, she envied them at times...almost.

They'd had a few dates, but she'd had enough sense not to sleep with Brady. Terri fixed a smile in place. "Thanks for the compliment."

"What were you doing?" He nodded toward the cold body.

"I'd think it would be obvious -- even to you." She winked to soften the dig. "I'm examining a male corpse." Maybe they could keep things pleasant if he didn't bring up the past.

"The hole is in his head, not his dick."

She shoved a droll stare his way. "If I didn't inspect the entire body, I might miss something significant." Especially since she hadn't seen a naked male in so long.

Who knows? Something might have changed.

"You need to get laid." Brady's wrinkled navy suit had lost its polish hours ago. The scruffy, plain-brown hair hadn't changed, still looking both sexy and as if he'd just gotten out of bed and finger brushed the thick locks. How unfair. Men not only got away with bed head but turned it into a vogue style.

At a loss for a stinging comeback, she just arched an eyebrow.

"What?" he snapped.

She let out a tired breath and raked him with a peeved glare. "Why is getting laid a man's answer to everything?"

Brady shrugged. "Maybe because once we get laid, most of our problems are solved." He broke out a megawatt smile intended to wear down her resistance.

Which should have been easy since she'd never been on the first page of anyone's little black book.

Terri wasn't in the market for marriage, but neither was she willing to climb into bed with a man she had no real feelings for, which meant his original primitive assessment of her mood was probably correct.

Change the subject now, before...

"Why didn't you return my calls?" His face lost all joking appeal, ruining any chance of avoiding this conversation.

Might as well get this over with. "I did return your first call and left a voicemail I'd be out of pocket for a while."

"A while?" He stood away from the doorjamb, rising to his imposing stature. "Most people would take 'a while' to mean a few weeks, not three months." A six-foot male leaning toward her in an intimidating posture would have rattled her right after the attack, but not now.

After leaving the hospital -- and the DEA -- she'd spent endless hours with a personal trainer to even the field with dangerous men. She didn't want to ever feel weak or helpless again.

"I had to do a major rehab -- " Terri started.

"I know that, but why did you hide from me?"

"Hide?" Was he insane, insensitive, or just plain unobservant? She growled under her breath and slapped her clipboard down on the body, then winced over her lack of respect for the dead.

What was it about sexy men that undermined her confidence?

"There are very few rehab facilities in New Orleans since Katrina. Or haven't you noticed?"

"That's not the real reason you cut out. The agency would have -- "

"What?" She strangled the pen in her fist, then crossedher arms to hide her hands. "The DEA turned its back onme and left me out to hang."

"Not exactly. You made the final decision." "Oh, sure. I resigned. You're right." She clicked the pen head up and down, then stopped. The last thing she wanted to do was televise a slim hold on her control. "They suspended me and started an investigation while I was hooked up to tubes in a hospital. Excuse me if I'm just a little...irritable."

Brady paced two steps away, hands in his pockets, then paused and met her gaze with a shielded one. "What did you expect them to do?"

"I expected them to -- " Her throat clogged. Pain and humiliation wrapped around the memory that shadowed her thoughts daily. "I expected them to believe me and to back me up. Not to blame me for Conroy's death or suspect me of working with Marseaux." Damn them all. Who could possibly think she'd kill her partner and join ranks with that vermin Marseaux?

"The DEA has not taken any action against you."

"Yet."

"True, but in two weeks they'll make a final determination and close the case."

"Or charge me with a crime." She raced the clock to prove her innocence and find Conroy's killer. DEA Internal Affairs was racing just as hard to charge and convict her.

"Stay clear of any trouble and you should be fine."

Terri let a humorless chuckle escape. Brady should just say it straight: Don't get caught associating with any felons.

Easy for him to say. She needed contacts, to groom new informants, and that meant consorting with felons. No easy task with word out that her last snitch had died after she and her partner, Conroy, had been ambushed. Her best contact on the Marseaux case had been found murdered the next day.

The minute she'd awakened after surgery, Terri had quickly realized the questions being put to her were DEA interrogation level, not just for information. She'd put her faith in them and they'd screwed her.

Never again. While going through rehab she'd been recruited by BAD -- the Bureau of American Defense -- and now worked for the multijurisdictional covert agency that protected American citizens wherever they might be found. The DEA didn't even know BAD existed. Another reason she'd signed on.

Two weeks. Terri swatted an errant curl off her forehead. She'd be lucky to find a felon willing to talk to her again.

"Save your advice. I didn't get into trouble before." Terri cringed at her shrewish voice. She owed the DEA nothing, ut she did owe Brady for making a clean shot at the man who had tried to carve her a new body with a twelve-inch butcher knife. Reaching inside herself for the calm she'd been taught in self-defense training, she took a deep breath. "The agency didn't want me back, and even if they had I'd have been stuck at a desk job. Might as well post a bulletin stating I'm not trustworthy in the field."

More importantly, she couldn't clear her name or find out who had set her and Conroy up while sitting at a desk, answering phones. Signing on with BAD gave her a fighting chance.

Brady had the decency to look uncomfortable. His gaze wandered around the room before he muttered, "Neither here nor there at this point." Then he focused on her again. "So you got plans for Fat Tuesday? Want to hook up for a drink later?"

She hadn't been asked out in a while, so on one level that was flattering, but not a path she wanted to travel again. Especially not with him. "Not right now. I'm pretty busy." Proving my innocence and convicting a vicious killer -- you know, the usual stuff that might preoccupy a woman facing prison time.

His eyebrows tilted together at the lie, seeing the truth behind her words, but he didn't press the issue. "Still haven't figured out what you want, huh?"

She tensed at his dig. Three glasses of wine after a long day four months ago and she'd blabbed to him some of her most personal thoughts. But that wasn't enough humiliation for her. Oh no, she had to finish with telling him she didn't know what she wanted out of life.

He'd used that as an invitation to help her figure it out.

Talk about having a blonde moment. She shook it off. "Well, sugar, half of figuring out what you want in life is by figuring out what you don't. Let's just stick to business, okay? What are you doing down here? This isn't your usual area." Terri picked up her clipboard.

"I'm on a case." He glanced to the decedent. "What's your interest in this body?"

She relaxed. Brady had come in because of the male victim and not just to see her. Maybe they could keep this professional after all. "John Doe was found at noon today in the area I've been investigating."

Brady's eyes widened a bit. "What are you working on?"

"I can't discuss that with you any more than you can discuss your case with me."

Curiosity burned deep in his ...

Customer Reviews

A Sudden Co-Author?
I pre-ordered this book on Amazon in March 2006. Back then it was supposed to be written by Sherrilyn Kenyon and was titled "Look Into The Dark." So over two years later, the book arrives and it's got SK's name in huge type, a new title, and lo and behold, a co-author. Uh-oh. Yeah, the BAD series isn't my favorite from SK, and now there's some other author involved. It's not a bad book. Really. But I didn't see much Sherrilyn Kenyon in it. I've never read Dianne Love, but I'd bet she did the heavy lifting on this one. This book isn't funny; the main characters are distant, although I liked the hero better than the heroine; the baddies are a bunch (and I mean *bunch*) of (undefined, but seemed kinda Catholic) religious nutjob sadists...blech. I found it unbelievable...and I totally accept the existence of Acheron and the Dark-Hunters. The ending wrapped up really fast, leaving a wide open space for sequels galore. The last BAD book I remember reading had lots more interaction of BAD agents; this one had cameos with Joe, Tee, Carlos, and Mako. The whole thing left me very unsatisfied.

Another Kenyon Disappointment
The one thing which can be said for S. Kenyon is that she is creative in finding new ways to disappoint her readers. A Phantom in the Night is not a Kenyon book it is a Diana Snell book. S. Kenyon has decided to follow in the footsteps of fellow authors such as James Paterson who creates a world for one or two books (The Women's Murder Club) and then passes it off to a co-author. The reader then believes he is getting a Kenyon or Patterson book but it is really the work of the co-author. The more established writer is used to draw readers in and to price the book at the better selling author's price point.

Unfortunately, the co-authors seldom have the writing experience to write a best seller and generally shift the "world" which was originally created into their own vision.

A Phantom in the Night has very little to do with B.A.D. as it was originally presented. The agent depicted in this story is brand new (2 to 3 months on the job) and is working a case on her own with only cameo appearances by the other agency operatives.

Other reviewers have described how hokey the villains of the book are so I won't go into detail. If you choose to purchase and read this book (it's not a horrible read just a terribly average one) do so with the understanding that it does not have the Kenyon flair nor does it have the excitement of a B.A.D. sequel.

meh
I wanted to like this book. It was on my must-have list and I bought it the day it came out. It's possible that I over-hyped the book in my own mind and that my diappointment in it is exaggerated, making me judge it more harshly than deserved.

I can't really pinpoint my least favorite part of the book. Maybe it was misused words (i.e. lathed when laved seemed appropriate) or maybe it was the cartoonish over the top secret society villians. I had to roll my eyes several times at the utter lack of plausibility, even within the confines of suspended belief required to enjoy fiction. Often, I wondered at the seemingly out of character actions for such highly trained operatives. I finished the book, and I even enjoyed parts of it, but I had to repeatedly put it down when the story became tedious and/or boring.

Overall, I'd say it was inconsistent, with delusions of grandeur.