I had the pleasure of meeting and talking with Jon Land at length at the International Thriller Writer's Conference in NY last July. To me, he was the face of the conference, being warm, kind, and generous with his time. He is also funny, witty and utterly charming.

So, I don't want to give him five stars. I hate that I have to give him five stars because I feel I'm being biased. His book was so well written and engaging that I looked forward to continuing to read it every day. I don't get a lot of reading time, so I have to break it in chunks and that's part of how I evaluate a novel. If I need to get back to it.

This is about a female Texas Ranger and the friends and foes she has found along the way. Much danger and much action and even some despicable acts, but it never leaves you bored.

Now, there were times I need a Tom Clancy-like focus to keep track of the meticulous details as he travels into the past for the required action needed to explain the present, but I got through it and it was worth it in the end.

This is a part of a series, which I have now started out of order, but that's okay. I look forward to the next one. ( )

Strong Rain Falling by Jon Land is the fifth book in the action/adventure series featuring female Texas Ranger Caitlin Strong. Normally Caitlin or her good friend Cort Wesley Masters are the intended target when/if the shooting starts, but much to their surprise and horror this time Master's two teenage sons, Dylan and Luke, are unmistakably the planned victims. Caitlin must figure out why the boys are being targeted and how it ties into two different massacres that happened on the same day but decades apart. It seems Caitlin's famous Texas Ranger grandfather and great-grandfather hold a key to her present day case from one they worked on in 1919.

The murderous plot leads back to the Mexican drug cartels of 1919. Unknown to Caitlin a complex plan for vengeance has been set into motion by the present day surviving head of her family's business, Ana Callas Guajardo. Caitlin's own massive and dangerous guardian "angel" Guillermo Paz is there to help her at every turn, while Masters is also searching his contacts to figure out why his son's specifically are being menaced.

Land's starts out running and quickly becomes a gallop as clues are uncovered and questions answered even as the body count rises and, it seems, nowhere is safe in this fast-paced complex thriller.

The characters are just as complex as the plot. It is always refreshing to see a strong female characters well written and Land has done a credible job with Caitlin and Ana. It's good to see a strong woman (or is that Strong?) as a Texas Ranger working things out on her own terms, not taking guff from anyone, and figuring out what is happening. As for other characters, Paz's self-searching that has him "auditing" college classes to hear about philosophers and then challenging the professors was very entertaining. In comparison, the DHS officer (Smith, Jones) was comparatively slimy.

For those of you who haven't read any of Land's previous books in the Caitlin Strong series, don't let that stop you from reading Strong Rain Falling. Let me admit right now that this is my first Jon Land book featuring Caitlin. Previously I had read several novels with his main character Blaine McCracken. While you won't be privy to all the intricacies of the back story established in previous novels, Land provides enough details to get you up-to-speed quickly. Certainly I didn't feel lost and unable to figure out how everyone was connected.

Very Highly Recommended


Disclosure: My Kindle edition was courtesy of Tor/Forge Books via Netgalley for review purposes.
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If you enjoy unpredictable thrillers this is the book for you. Texas Ranger Caitlin Strong is trying to find out who is targeting the sons of her love interest Cort Masters who just happens to be in a Mexican prison. She also must figure out what his teenage sons have in common with the dead bodies found lined up on a drill rig.

Drug Cartel, nuclear weapons, and ghosts from the past are what you'll find in this action packed novel. Fast paced, refreshing, entertaining... Jon Land knows how to write!

I received a copy of this book free from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. ( )

Strong Rain Falling: A Caitlin Strong Novel by Jon Land
ISBN-10: 0765331500 $25.99
Publisher: Forge Books (August 13, 2013), 368 pages.
Review copy courtesy of the author.

I've been following Jon Land's Caitlin Strong character from Strong Enough to Die, the first book in the series. This latest and 5th in the series, Strong Rain Falling, is one of my favorites. If you're new to the series, you can read Strong Enough to Die without having read the earlier novels because Land gives us the backstory of the main characters. Having said that, I'd still recommend reading the novels in order if only because you get a fuller sense of who they are and what drives them.

For those new to the series, the lead character, Caitlin Strong is a third generation Texas Ranger and one of the only women in her group. Whether her toughness is genetic or environmental, we'll never really know but there is no question that Caitlin Strong has that edge that makes the best Texas Rangers and has caused them to be feared and respected throughout Texas and much of the Southwest and Mexico.

First, she's tough. Like Lee Child's Jack Reacher and Carol O'Connell's Detective Mallory, Caitlin Strong doesn't react to danger the way normal people do. She's trained to rush into the fray, but she does it with lightning reflexes, almost unnatural strength and grace, and with quick intelligence. Like her father and grandfather before her, she's the sort of person that you want on your side. "One riot, one Ranger" is the often repeated saying but fortunately with Caitlin Strong on your side, it's not just a saying.

Caitlin's love interest is the prickly Cort Wesley Masters, a man known to be as dangerous and deadly as Caitlin. Cort's life took the opposite direction as he was less fortunate - crime, deadly confrontations, limited options - he'd ended up protecting some of the most notorious criminals in the US and below the border. But Cort mellowed out, turned respectable with his love for Caitlin and the discovery of two young sons. More than anything, fatherhood sobered him up and forced Cort to change his way of life. The scenes where Cort has to pull back and restrain himself are some of the more interesting and fun in the book.

In Strong Rain Falling, Caitlin takes Cort's elder son, Dylan, to Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island to interview for college when they are attacked by armed men. Cort and his younger son, Luke, face similar deadly force in an amusement park in another state. As Caitlin investigates it turns out that the boys are the main targets because of a secret that their mother's family has kept.

These attacks coincide with the brutal mass murder of five children in Willow Creek, Texas. We discover that these events are tied together somehow. I don't want to give away any of the plot details, so I'll stop here. A historical backstory, further adventures of the early Texas Rangers, a seemingly unbeatable opponent, horrendous odds, a complex and fast-paced plot, and characters that we come to care about all come together in Strong Rain Falling. You'll want to block off a chunk of time when you start Strong Rain Falling - you won't want to put it down! ( )