Book Review - Baited: An Espionage Novel by Victoria Montes

Baited: An Espionage novel by Victoria Montes
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A young teacher, the sole survivor of a mass shooting at her school, is recruited by a mysterious private organization to fight terrorism by any means necessary.

Baited, the exciting new crime drama by author Victoria Montes, opens as a horrific school shooting by Jihadi terrorists erupts where the main character is a teacher. Isolated in the teachers’ lounge, she evades discovery and is, ultimately, the lone survivor of the attack; however, she doesn’t walk away undamaged.

Karen Fisher, the young main character, already had PTSD following her previous career as a Navy nurse serving in Afghanistan. Nightmares of what she’d experienced during her deployment continued to haunt her. When the shooting had begun, Karen had dialed 9-1-1 and hidden at the urging of the emergency operator. Still, she’d seen her students gunned down as she helplessly remained in hiding.

In the aftermath, she turns to alcohol to get through the night and, eventually, every day that follows. Karen has a committed partner in Steven, but he eventually hits the limits of what he can take. Feeling helpless and frustrated with her inability to move on, Steven steps away from their life, leaving Karen on her own. For this reason, I was not a Steven fan; however, he won me over in the end with his tenacity, dedication, and genuine devotion. He knew he’d failed her when he walked.

The mysterious Department G recruits her, and while the plot follows her preparation and subsequent missions to put an end to terrorism, the focus of the story is on her mental struggles, doubts, and moral dilemmas she has regarding not only the school shooting and her perceived failure to act but the means and methods Department G uses to attain their goals.

Karen’s immediate attraction to her handler is akin to the classic battlefield romance developed under high stress and in the heightened passions of the artificial world in which they’re confined. Survivor’s guilt also drives Frank/Owen, but he has focused his pain on eradicating terrorism by any means necessary. Although you know their relationship is wrong, a real recipe for disaster, the sexual tension between these two is so good you can’t help hoping things work out for them.

The Department G missions are daring, and outside what’s lawful and moral, so the story takes some edgy, uncomfortable turns. In response, characters must make hard choices that lead to some unexpected plot twists, including a surprising and satisfying conclusion.

I recommend BAITED to readers of crime fiction and psychological dramas.

I voluntarily reviewed this after receiving an Advanced Review Copy from Reedsy Discovery.

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