Into the Fire

Switchback is Book 15 in the A Rachel Hatch Novel Series by L.T. Ryan and Brian Shea.

Rachel Hatch (aka Hatch) arrives back “home” in Hawk’s Landing for her niece’s birthday where she is able to share some “real” time with her nephew too. It’s a brief time of fun activities, but her friend, and now family after marrying her mother, Jed has a private moment with her to mention his nephew, Landon, who lives off the grid in a small town in Wyoming. He’s a former addict (at least Jed hopes it’s a “former” situation), but Jed hasn’t heard from him in quite some time and is worried about him.

Hatch offers to go find out about him in spite of Jed’s protest, but Hatch is never one to not accept a purpose – especially for family. Coming home for Hatch is never without its own sorrow, always recalling the murder of her father and the death of her sister and she can’t seem to stay very long.

Arriving in Wyoming, she learns rather quickly how this particular small town operates, focused on the past pursuits of its citizens while assuming those citizens probably haven’t changed. There’s been a recent murder, and Landon is the suspect.

After rescuing a young female meth junkie at the motel where Hatch is staying, she offers to give the girl a ride home, but the girl is irate because her dealer (Posey) is now unconscious and will be furious when he awakens. Delivering the twitchy girl to her grandpa’s home, Hatch has an informative discussion with the man.

Hatch is never one to sidestep trouble and knows she’ll be facing Posey again at some point, but her first mission is to find Landon and see how he’s doing. After meeting Landon, she’s convinced he’s clean and not the killer of the new victim with a similar history to a previous unsolved murder of a 10-year-old boy.

The hunt for the killer takes some unusual trails and Landon is jailed. When Hatch extracts critical information from Posey, it becomes a race to get there before the killer does.

There is plenty of action in the second half of this story, and Hatch is no slouch when it comes to gut-level action. She’s been there and done that in so much of her life, it’s her first nature to enter life or death situations when true rescue is pending.

Hatch is my second favorite heroine just behind Sibella Giorello’s Raleigh Harmon. Both haven’t had it easy in the early years of their lives, were born warriors with tender hearts that aren’t always in the forefront due to circumstances that require them to be hard as granite and cold as ice.

Highly recommend the A Rachel Hatch Novel Series. Good writing, great stories, meaningful characters.

Father, I ask your blessings to fall on L.T. and Brian. Continue to provide those great stories you have just for them to tell. In the Name of Jesus, Amen.