A couple of years ago, I read and enjoyed If She Wakes by Michael Koryta, after also enjoying his earlier books How It Happened and Those Who Wish Me Dead. Once again, I very much appreciated the chance to read his latest offering, Never Far Away (thanks to Little, Brown & Company and NetGalley in exchange for my honest review).

The latest book opens with a horrifying scene involving a woman named Nina Morgan who at first seems to clearly be a hostage on the verge of being murdered. As it turns out, Nina is a wife and mother of two young children who is working with the “hostage takers” to fake her own death. She is making a desperate attempt to keep her family safe from her employer, Carson Lowery, whose contracting company has been referred to as “Blackwater on Steroids.”

The “hostage takers” had been hired by Lowery to eliminate Nina before she can testify against him…unfortunately for Lowery, the guys he hired were annoyed with him to the extent that they were willing to flip and work for Nina to convince Lowery that they had completed their assignment. Nina disappears from Florida, knowing she will never see her husband and kids again, and disappears into the woods of Maine. Fast forward ten years, and her husband and kids have relocated to Kentucky, where the kids are raised believing their mother died when they were young, and that she had a sister, their “Aunt Leah.” Now thirteen and ten years old, the kids are sent to live with their “Aunt” after their father dies in an auto accident. Lowery, who has never given up looking for Nina/Leah, sends a new duo of killers to complete the job the first guys screwed up.

The assassins track Leah/Nina and her kids to Kentucky, then to Maine and the suspense is terrific. Mr. Koryta has written eleven (I think) suspense novels. I have enjoyed the three I have read, and will definitely grab the next one when it comes out. Reliable author, strong on both plotting and character development. Four stars.