The next book in the FBI Agent Jade Monroe Live or Dies Series by C.M. Sutter is Blood Trail. Blood Trail is book 2 in the series. This time, Jade Monroe and her partner, Lorenzo DeLeon, along with two other seasoned agents, head to South Dakota and Wyoming, where girls have been kidnapped.
I have found this book, as well as the first, so easy to read. It’s also written well and gives me great imagery. I said this with the last book, but I could easily see each of these being an amazing episode of Criminal Minds or a separate series itself.
We learn that Gary and Leon, recently let out of prison, meet up with acquaintances Clair and Hope to set up a human trafficking scheme. Claire and Hope are both sheltered, coddled, rich kids who are more than ready to be away from their parents’ control. But not their parents’ money. And their parents are enabling them. Both are currently 21 and live on their own. But Gary and Leon have plans for them. It’s much easier for Claire and Hope to help with the abductions since they are young and look trusting.
Using a white box truck with a fake magnetic logo on the side, they pick up 4 women from various towns. However, one of the girls dies from being given too much sleep aid, and they have to dump her body. Though angry, Gary and Leon know that they’ll still get plenty of money from Charlie, who takes the girls and then sells them to buyers.
But when Hope makes a bad decision to return to her own home, Gary is waiting for her. Gary ends up selling her to Charlie as well.
Things keep getting worse for Gary, though. Claire ended up calling the police while in a store using someone else’s phone. The police didn’t arrive in time, but Gary doesn’t trust that she didn’t do anything wrong. And while Gary tried to sleep, Leon, who’s behind the wheel, gets clocked by Claire, and she takes off. When Gary wakes up, Leon is dea,d and Claire is gone. He tracks her down, though, and ties her up. He intends to sell her, too.
Gary makes poor decision after poor decision. He kills the owner of the small rental property for food and a little money, then takes off. He ends up finding another girl to kidnap. Two is better than one, right?
With the help of some locals and information from the girl’s husband, the FBI agents are hot on their trail. But they’re still one step behind. Plus, they need to find where Gary takes the girls so they get another person in the human trafficking ladder. Those helpful souls do, in fact, lead them to Charlie.
The FBI agents set a trap for Gary, but he spots the guys following him and a chase is on! Using her wits and the locals’ knowledge, they trap Gary and make the arrest.
Claire and Hope don’t understand why they’re going to jail, though. In fact, the parents don’t really understand it either. They all believe these girls to be victims. But they weren’t. Now, it will be up to the courts and a jury to see what happens to them. But Jade and her partner’s jobs are done.
What was cool about this book was Jade wrestling with her gut. It’s clear that you can have an opinion, think something happened, but can’t use the resources to check it out if something else tells a different story. And I loved how they would feed the information to each other and to their boss, Maureen Taft, to get her opinion. And seeing how Maureen took control of roadblocks and connections within departments was really cool. I enjoyed these aspects of the book.
Another wonderful aspect of this book was the connections they all made. In the first book, there were 2 FBI agents, Jade and Renz. they onviuosly worked with local law enforcement, but that was it, basically. In this book, they had two additional agents they worked with, Fay and Tommy, plus countless other local police and sheriffs due to the wide area Gary and Leon covered. And, they also worked with trafficking experts to locate and deal with Charlie and his compound.
Then, at the end, several of them come together in town to have some coffee and donuts and say their goodbyes. It was so neat to see them all work together. I’m sure that there are times when locals don’t want the FBI involved or want to do things their way. And it might come up in future books. But I love how this one worked out. It was certainly a team effort.
I can’t wait for the next one!