The Deadly Shallows

Two Coast Guard members struggle with their feelings for each other as they track down the mastermind behind a deadly attack on their base in the pulse-pounding third entry in Pettrey’s Coastal Guardians series (after The Crushing Depths). After assailants open fire on a Coast Guard graduation ceremony, wounded agent Noah Rowley turns his hospital room into a command center as he uses his God-given “instinct for solving crimes” to investigate the shooting. He has feelings for flight medic Brooke Kesler, but before he gets the chance to tell her, the attackers’ comrades kidnap Brooke to make sure she doesn’t share any incriminating information she may have learned while treating the sole shooter to survive the attack. Noah prays for her safe return and she escapes, but it’s not long before her abductors come back to finish what they started. Meanwhile, the investigation turns up clues that suggest the shooting may have been a cover-up for a far more nefarious scheme. Pettrey masterfully balances Noah and Brooke’s burgeoning relationship with the unraveling of the tightly plotted mystery. Fans of Lynette Eason and DiAnn Mills will enjoy this. Agent: Janet Kobobel Grant, Books & Such Literary Agency. (July)