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Strong Justice: A Caitlin Strong Novel    by Jon Land Amazon.com order for
Strong Justice
by Jon Land
Order:  USA  Can
Forge, 2010 (2010)
Hardcover, e-Book
* * *   Reviewed by Hilary Williamson

Jon Land's Strong Enough to Die introduced a new tough yet vulnerable gun-toting heroine, Texas Ranger Caitlin Strong, to the thriller scene. It brought Caitlin together with ex-Special Forces Cort Wesley Masters, who had lived his life on the wrong side of the law, and with his teen sons Dylan and Luke. It also garnered her an unusual ally in former secret police colonel Guillermo Paz, who sought redemption as Caitlin's and others' Guardian Angel.

Strong Justice opens on a thrilling hospital hostage rescue by Caitlin, whose reward is a clue to her investigation into missing Mexican girls. Then, in Cort Wesley's absence, she helps his fifteen-year-old son Dylan who's rescued one such teen girl, Maria Lopez, from her kidnappers. Macerio, a serial killer of hundreds of Mexican women, whose bloodline of victims maps the U.S. border, tries to get Maria back.

Another subplot follows tycoon Hollis Tyree III, who is drilling for water in Texas. But his operation is having disturbing unintended consequences in Albion, Texas, whose residents exhibit uncharacteristically violent behaviors. And then there's renegade Colonel Renaldo Montoya, once Mayan commander of Mexico's Zeta Special Forces, who's allied with drug lords. He kills young American tourists and plots devastating attacks on U.S. cities that he believes will initiate the End Times predicted by his people for 2012.

All these subplots come together in an explosive finale in which Caitlin, Cort Wesley, Paz, and ordinary people despised by Montoya as peasants take a stand against evil. Flashbacks to the life of Caitlin's Texas Ranger grandfather Earl Strong and fascinating Texas Ranger lore are scattered throughout to enrich the story and eventually answer questions about Caitlin's own early life and the source of her nightmares. Strong Justice is even better than Strong Enough to Die and neither is to be missed by thriller fans!

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