Wild Justice

"Wild Justice", the third and last book in the Nadia Stafford series about a ex-cop turned hitman for the mob, provides a very satisfying end to the series as well as a good standalone novel.

For me, the appeal of this series comes from an inversion of the normal assumptions in crime novels. In most books, Nadia Stafford would be the villain, not the hero. She kills people for money. I ought not to like her. Yet, over the course of the three books, I constantly found myself wanting her to succeed.

In the first book, "Exit Strategy", I liked Nadia because she was smart and brave and had personal integrity but I didn't really get inside her head. I actively disliked Jack, her laconic, emotionally withdrawn mentor.

In the second book "Made To show more Be Broken" I got to see the world more from Nadia's point of view. I understood how the interaction between the traumas in her past and her personality, led her to lead a double life and set up the conflict between being a loyal, brave person who runs a Nature Lodge in the woods and being a killer for hire. I still couldn't quite reconcile the person I liked with the job that she chose to do.

In "Wild Justice" Kelley Armstrong turns her whole focus onto who Nadia Stafford is and why she is that way. The themes are deeper and the writing more self-assured than in "Exit Strategy". "Exit Strategy" read like an "I-wonder-what-it-would-be-like-to-write-a-thriller-with-no-paranormal-content" experiment on the edges of what Kelley Armstrong had written up to then. "Wild Justice" is in the heart of what Kelley Armstrong excels at: giving insights into strong, sometimes violent, women and making them real.

The story is woven from three main threads: discovering what REALLY happened to Nadia when she was thirteen and she and her cousin were abducted and her cousin was killed, responding to a hit being taken out on Nadia and resolving Nadia's relationship with the two men in her life, Quinn a US Marshall with a side-line in vigilante justice and Jack, Nadia's laconic and apparently emotionally crippled mentor.

The story is well plotted, with lots of tension, a great deal of action and violence and more than a few surprises along the way.The writing is tight and the dialog is perfect. What lifts the book and makes it one of my favourites from Kelley Armstrong, is Nadia's journey into her own past, how it makes her confront her present and finally gives her the ability to craft a future.

It's a great read. It keeps the pages turning and at the end, it gives a gratifying sense of closure. show less

This is the final title in the trilogy that Kelley Armstrong has written about Nadia Stafford, lodge owner and killer for hire. It is also the most emotionally gripping, focusing on Nadia's relationships and psyche following the reveal of family secrets. Even though this is less about her marks and the things that Nadia does as a hitman, there is no lack of action or plot twists with a good mystery still at the heart of the novel.

Whether writing urban fantasy or mystery, Kelley Armstrong is a fantastic storyteller. Each book hooks me from the first page and keeps me engrossed until the last. Much as I love the Otherworld series, this book may be one of my favorites.

Note: There are no spoilers for this book in this review.

Thank you Kelley Armstrong for ending this series so perfectly. Or at least, I think it is the end of the series. But if it’s not? I’m sure not complaining!

This is book three in a series about Nadia Stafford, 33, a former policewoman who supplements her income operating a wilderness retreat lodge in the Ontario region by working as an occasional hitwoman. She has three main colleagues in this latter endeavor: her mentor Jack: sexy, somber, secretive; Jack’s mentor Evelyn: connected, manipulative, smart; and Quinn, a federal agent with a hitman sideline, who is fervent, committed, and brash. Quinn openly is after Nadia, and Jack? We sense the chemistry between Nadia and Jack, show more but whether either or them will admit to it, and/or do anything about it, is the big question as we move into book three.

Indeed, at the beginning of Wild Justice, Nadia has been dating Quinn. It’s so easy with him: he’s eager, he’s open, and he communicates. With Jack, it would be a huge risk even to indicate interest in him. Is it possible that Nadia or Jack would ever take a chance, risking rejection and humiliation? And anyway, how can they find the time when someone is always trying to kill Nadia - especially when the people trying to kill Nadia seem to be connected with the source of all her nightmares: a horrible event that happened twenty years earlier.

Evaluation: Kelley Armstrong does everything right with this book, at least as far as I was concerned. She kept me guessing right till the end: I kept having to jump up and take a reading break, afraid she was about take a plot direction I feared. Fans of the Nadia Stafford series should not miss this wind-up. And if you haven’t read the first two? Yes, you can read this one as a standalone, but then you’d miss so much of the background and buildup, and it’s such a good series, you won’t want to do that! show less

After 4 years of waiting, fans of Armstrong's Nadia Stafford series finally got a conclusion to the series. In [b:Wild Justice|13431883|Wild Justice (Nadia Stafford, #3)|Kelley Armstrong|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1363458938s/13431883.jpg|18926875], Nadia finds herself face to face with the killer of her young cousin and is forced to confront her memories of the past.

I love the Nadia Stafford series, so I was extremely relieved when this book got released, as I knew it would wrap-up questions from the previous books. However, some things in this novel seemed like they were on fast-forward. I got the feeling that Armstrong had originally intended to have more than 3 books in the series but then changed her mind (either due to her show more other stories being more popular or a loss of interest in the concept) and decided to cram everything into this one.

Despite this, I still really loved Wild Justice and thought it was a strong ending for the series. Secretly though, I am holding onto the fragile hope that maybe someday Armstrong might decide to give us another Nadia book. show less

An excellent wrap-up of an exciting trilogy! You really got to know the characters even better than in earlier books in the series, proving that character development can continue past the first book when the author is skilled at their craft. Lots of plot twists kept me reading way past my bedtime. And although many issues for our heroine were resolved by the end of this story, the door is still left ajar for future adventures.

Nadia `Dee' Stafford is a hitman. After a disastrous career move as a cop, that saw her shoot an unarmed criminal and get kicked off the force, Nadia took herself into the wilds of Canada where she bought a lodge and started a B&B. But to keep her new life afloat she started taking jobs as a gun for hire. Early in her side-career she was taken under the wing of veteran hitman, `Jack', and the two of them have been through a few near-misses and gruelling assignments together.

But never far from Nadia's mind is the truth of why she became a cop in the first place, and maybe why killing comes so naturally to her . . . when she was just 13-years-old, Nadia and her cousin Amy were kidnapped. Nadia got away, Amy didn't. After a botched trial, show more her murderer walked free.

Drew Aldrich and the memory of Amy's death have haunted Nadia ever since, but when Aldrich resurfaces (under a new alias) finding him sets off a chain-reaction in the murky underworld of hired assassins and puts Nadia in grave danger.

After waiting what seemed an eternity for this book it's finally here and does not disappoint. Loved every minute of it! I've read that this is the last in this series, I certainly hope that somewhere, somehow Nadia and Jack will continue. show less

The Good: This is how you end a series. A wonderfully real romance that satisfying with adequate buildup. Revelations from the past that make complete sense while tearing your heart out. A strong heroine showing explainable, humanizing weakness. I was sucked in from page one and couldn't do anything else with my life until I knew how it ended. And it was totally worth it.

The Bad: Now I want more Nadia!