Ross M. (Parrothead) reviewed on 3/30/2007 + 533 more book reviews

This is the fourth of the Medusa series that I have read and it was just as good as the others (The Medusa Project, The Medusa Game and The Medusa Prophecy). The Medusas are a team of special forces operatives who are all women - although not as strong as men in the special forces there are some situations in which an all-women team can be an advantage.

And Medusa Rising shows another of these examples. A cruise liner has been hijacked, all the men have been put off the boat (apart from the 24 male terrorists) so a male special forces team would stand out like a sore thumb. In this story Aleesha Gautier, the doctor among the Medusas, takes the lead as they infiltrate the ship and she works on surveillance to prepare for boarding by some Navy SEALs. Of course things aren't quite as they seem - when Aleesha finds herself feeling sympathy for one of the terrorists in particular she knows this could be a problem; she also has not yet ever been able to kill a man - her medic training is to preserve life - but she knows that she will have to take lives to rescue the women and children on board.

Cindy Dees knows how to write exciting stories. Each of her four Medusa tales so far is set in a very different environment and using different skills that the women have but they are all gripping and interesting. You never really feel that you know the main character too deeply though - these stories are more about action than characterisation. However in this story I felt I understood Aleesha and also the terrorist that she finds herself drawn to - these were painted rather more fully than characters in her other books.

It's hard to know whether you're suspending reality, when reading these books, or whether special forces people really can do all the things we are told they can. The Medusas are an impressive team and it's good to read about women who go out and do things rather than just being eye candy for men. There were several loose ends in this story, which I haven't noticed in previous books, so perhaps these are setting the scene for a subsequent book (for example who the American terrorists had trained with, what happened to the female terrorist who had mixed with the women). As with the other stories apart from the first one, the love interest of these women doesn't seem to get a mention in subsequent books, which sometimes makes it hard to imagine the Happy Ever After when the hero and heroine don't seem to mention each other in future instalments. However this is a good read and the romance isn't the foremost aspect of the story which lifts it a little above your average modern romance.
AMAZON.COM READER'S REVIEW

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