Breaking Point (Troubleshooters, Book 9) (edition 2005)

Breaking Point
Book 9 in Troubleshooters series

Max & Gina; Molly & Jones *sigh* Need I continue? Not really, but okay.

After basically pushing Gina away in a typically masochistically Max-like way, Gina and Max are separated for 18 months while she is off doing volunteer work in Kenya, coincidentally working with Molly Anderson. We get a lot of good flashbacks to see how they got to that point. He's pining for her but refuses to "hurt" her by allowing her to know how much he loves her. She's pining away for him, hoping he'll see the light, but understanding that he'll probably never get there.

Molly & Gina are trying to help young African girls escape from family members who are forcing them to endure the torture of genital mutilation. They are both in danger if they are caught. While they are in the midst of planning the defection of one of these girls, Molly's love, Grady Morant aka Jones, shows up in her little village after three years. He's been trying to outrun the warlords/smugglers who have been dogging him for years. He's stayed away from Molly all this time to protect her. Even living under the guise of someone else's identity, he's worried about the trouble he could bring down on Molly as well.

Max FINALLY realizes what is important to him and what he's been missing when he gets word that Gina's name is on the casualty list of a car bombing in Germany. He's immediately on a plane (along with FBI Agent Jules Cassidy) to identify her body and bring her home. He's totally wrecked. (The scene in the morgue was awesome.) To their tentative relief, they discover that it was not her body and that someone else was using her passport, suggesting she may still have been in contact with terrorists and may still be in danger. Now the race is on to try and locate her.

Gina and Molly are kidnapped and due to a series of simultaneous terrorist activities around the globe making it impossible to utilize any military forces, it is up to the skeleton crew of Max, Jules, and Grady to secure the ladies' release on their own. By the end of it, they are all trapped inside a fortress of a house trying to figure out how to escape the crazy warlords who have been after Grady. In the course of their confinement we get to see the couples work out their personal issues and we get to see the friendship between all of them solidify.

Jules Cassidy is given a terrific solid role in this book which shows off his adept skill, kindness and excellent sense of humor. He's such an awesome character. ( )

When Max Bhagat, the "boss" of the elite FBI counterterrorism unit, hears that Gina Vitagliano was killed in a bombing in Germany, he looses his cool and think of nothing more than to get her body back to the USA. With the help of Jules Cassidy, Max discovers that Gina isn't dead but she may be in grave danger as well as her travelling companion Molly Anderson because of a man that Max once let get away, Grady Morant aka Dave Jones.
Max will stop at nothing to bring her back to the USA and in his life.

Again, I loved the story. I love Molly and Jones, despite some bumps on the road, they do make a great couple and I enjoyed the way that Suzanne brought them together. They really deserve a happing ending. As for Gina and Max, at first I was a little unsure whether this would go not only despite their age difference but as well as their crashing personality. Gina is clearly a pursuer and Max a believer in his moral code so, things were harsh and hard for them but, again, Suzanne did the magic that she does, and yes, this love story ended smoothly.
I believe there aren't any characters in the series that I don't love... ( )

I absolutely loved this one--one of the best since the first book, I thought, which is surprising since absolutely no one from Team Sixteen even shows up in it! (And it was okay, it really was--Jules and Max and Jones more than made up for it...plus, there's a teeny little Alyssa cameo. Sam is apparently there as well, but we don't see him, alas.)

I didn't at all have a problem with the back and forth time shifts on this one, because I thought it worked well for the story. There's certain things that we wouldn't have wanted to know earlier than we did, so to me the way it was written made sense. The dual narrators did a good job, and I'm finally getting used to the way they pronounce Max's last name (because it's totally different than the way the earlier narrator used to do it).

Max and Gina's--and Jones and Molly's--stories were totally worth the wait. Just angsty enough, and with action and drama and emotional roller-coastering a-plenty to make me look for excuses to keep listening. Jules was absolutely phenomenal. His line to Max--"Recovering from a gunshot wound is not a vacation. You need to write that, like, on your hand or something." Classic. Just classic. ( )

Breaking Point is the ninth installment in the Troubleshooters series. It starts out when Max Bhagat lets the love of his life Gina, to go to Africa, and out of his life, despite his strong feelings for her. But when he hears that she has been killed in Harmburg Germany, he goes to Germany along with Jules Cassidy to identify the body, however when he arrives he finds out that the body isn't Gina, its someone else. Through the investigation, a man who is hunted by mostly every government in the world, Grady Morant, AKA "Jones" comes to him for help in finding those that have kidnapped Gina and his wife Molly Anderson. So despite his brain telling him he can't afford to trust Grady, in his heart he knows its the only way to find Gina, the one who has mattered to him more than anything or anyone else ever has before. So they head to one of the most dangerous countries known, hot zone, to rescue the two women that matter to these men, and who will rescue them at any cost to themselves and their future.

Breaking Point just like her other books, is filled with adventure and suspense. There are two story lines to Breaking Point however one is in the past and one is in the present. The past story line covers more of Gina and Max's intimate relationship and leads to why they are separated now. Then it takes us to Gina and Molly's time in Kenya, where they are reunited with Jones AKA Grady Morant, and which leads to the present day, to the kidnapping of these two women, in search of Grady Morant, from a drug lord who has been after him for many years, where his past comes to haunt him and Max as well. But with Jules Cassidy at their side, they go to one of the most dangerous hot spots in the world, to rescue the two innocent bystanders, but will they make it out of the "Hot Spot" alive and together and with a future to go back to? I was thoroughly satisfied with Breaking Point. This is part of the spectacular Troubleshooters series and a intense world that Suzanne Brockmann has created for her readers to delight in. There aren't really any problems with this one, although it got kinda annoying at times with the different time plots, which would switch at intense moments, and I had the extreme urge to skip through, but since I was listening to this audio style, I decided I needed to restrain myself, and I was grateful that I did, because it helped me to know the background of Gina and Max especially whom I have been rooting for since Over The Edge came into the picture and we see the start of their relationship has been a bit rocky, but its genuine and real. We also get to see Jones and Molly whom we have seen in Out Of Control, but have been seperated until Breaking Point and how they find it safe enough to get back together and married even, so this was a sensational and intense packed read that I found myself having a trying time to put my Ipod down because I became so involved with the story, plus a bonus is a great narrator who I found is common throughout the series of Audio of this series, and portrays the action scenes and the tender emotions portrayed throughout these astrounding romances that will leave you at the edge!! ( )

I love Suzanne Brockmann and while I don't think Breaking Point was quite as good as her last book, Hot Target, it was still a darn fine read. I was glad that we finally got Max's book and that Max got his happy ending. I was also happy to see Jules playing a larger role in the plot. However, the beginning was a little choppy with the back-and-forth between various times. I also think that this book might have lost a little something without a WW2 subplot (something that was always in the previous books in this series) to back it up. Still, a good read though I wish Brockmann would have allowed us a bit more of a glimpse into the lives of the other characters in the series, both SEALs and Troubleshooters. ( )