Book 5 in the Nadia Stafford Series
📖 Reviewed by LD | Rating: 5/5 | Steam: 🔥
⚠️ This is a full spoiler review. If you haven’t read Perfect Victim yet — go read it first. We’ll be here when you’re done.
The Opening
I do not read physical books. I am an audiobook person through and through. But when I found out there was a Nadia Stafford book featuring Ty Cypher from the Rockton series, I tracked down the ebook and read every word. Zero regrets.
The Full Story — Spoilers Included
The Crossover
The book opens with a man named Ty Cypress asking questions at Nadia’s lodge. My first reaction was confusion — did I misread which book this was? But of course: hitmen use false identities. He’s asking after Jack, who goes by John around the lodge. Felix tips Jack off that Cypher has been looking for him, mentioning that Jack had gone after Cypher years ago over something that went sideways on a job and everyone assumed Cypher was dead. He has, in fact, been living in the woods this whole time, which anyone who read the Rockton series will find completely unsurprising.
Jack rushes home. He finds Cypher and Nadia in the woods and gets the drop on him. Cypher, after much prodding, admits why he’s there: someone he loves is in danger, and for her to live, someone else needs to die. He needs help with research and planning. He is willing to foot the entire bill at double rate.
Cypher is very good at playing the simple outdoorsman. He is considerably smarter than he lets on.
The woman is Angela, a lawyer in Honolulu working family court cases. Three people have been murdered in connection with these cases. A lawyer’s child was killed so he refused to take more cases, leaving Angela as the only one willing. Then her dog was killed. Then a bomb was put in her car. Cypher presents this as someone from his past, a woman he once loved. It becomes clear as the book progresses that this framing is deliberate misdirection.
Hawaii
Jack, Nadia, and the investigation move to Hawaii. Jack breaks into Angela’s home and finds she has already started her own investigation with three suspects identified. Nadia goes to Angela’s office presenting herself as private security hired by a concerned third party. Angela immediately wonders aloud, in a roundabout way, whether the anonymous benefactor might be Cypher.
Jack works through Angela’s suspect list in various disguises, clearing names one at a time. Nadia runs into the third suspect, Sheila Walling, and she doesn’t fit. A retired cop turned PI, the husband of one of the victims, is running his own parallel investigation and believes it was Sheila. But something keeps nagging at Nadia. Things don’t add up.
Sheila gets arrested. It still doesn’t sit right.
Nadia traces the loose threads to Sheila’s mother’s vacant house. She breaks in and finds trip wires. Two go to alerts. The third is attached to a bomb. She suspects Victor, Sheila’s soon-to-be ex-husband, who has been framing her.
They tip Victor off and watch him go straight to the house, rummaging through papers before heading up to the attic. Nadia corners him at the workbench. Caught, he starts talking: he had to protect Sheila no matter what she’d done, she was still his children’s mother. Then he lunges and threatens to pull the trip wire and kill everyone unless they let him go. He is increasingly desperate and hears sirens. He reaches for the wire. Nadia shoots him.
Victor admits to accidentally killing his girlfriend with a bomb he’d intended to scare her with. He simply wanted her to get spooked off and go away, not kill her. He tried again with the lawyer and that bomb accidentally went off when the lawyer’s daughter opened the BBQ. But there are still two murders unaccounted for.
Both Nadia and Jack have figured this out independently. Neither has said it to the other yet.
Angela
Jack sees it first. Angela’s firm was struggling and now she’s drowning in cases. She was involved with one of the victim’s husbands. He thinks Angela got into an argument with the man’s wife and killed her accidentally, then found it easier than she expected and went after the judge who was getting too close to the truth. She then needed to look like she was a target herself.
Nadia is supposed to meet Angela for coffee. Angela doesn’t show. Nadia goes to the office to find her and discovers Howard Lang unconscious on the floor, the same man Angela had supposedly been having an affair with. Howard tells her Angela knocked him out when he came asking questions with too many loose ends. He says he knows where Angela would have run and offers to take her there, suggesting Nadia take the lead since he froze up last time they were in danger.
Five steps in she feels cold metal at her back.
Howard has Angela tied up in a shack. He ties Nadia’s wrists and doesn’t relax until they’re secure. The moment he does, Nadia strikes. Angela joins in. Howard is losing the fight badly. The door swings open and Jack appears with a gun. Nadia had sent him a text as a backup plan at some point. Jack had chased Howard’s car down on foot.
The truth comes out: Angela never had an affair with Howard, though many thought he was. He had been pursuing her relentlessly and she was about to file stalking charges when she spoke to Mindy, Howard’s wife, and told her what was happening. Mindy left Howard. Howard killed Mindy. Judge Kim believed Mindy’s death wasn’t a suicide and reached out to Howard. Howard killed him too to shut him down.
The Reveal
As things wrap up over drinks, Angela says quietly that he isn’t coming, is he. Nadia confirms she passed along her message. Angela asks her to pass along one more.
Tell my father I would really like to see him.
Cypher is Angela’s father. The whole book he framed it as a woman from his past, someone he once loved. She is his daughter. It reframes everything and it’s a genuinely good twist.
The Proposal
Jack and Nadia talk about how they can never legally marry. Claiming a legal marriage would require Jack to surface his real identity, which is too dangerous. Jack starts to reach into his pocket and pulls out a ring box. He starts to explain and then loses his nerve and begins to put it away.
Nadia stops him.
She asks if he is asking her to fake marry him. He says no.
“I’m asking you to be my wife in every way that counts.”
She says yes. Then she calls the lodge and tells Emma they got married, making up a story about a chapel.
These are two people who never seemed like the marrying type and found a way to make it work anyway. It is exactly right for both of them.
One Thing Worth Noting
Both Nadia and Jack independently figured out that Victor wasn’t the only killer, and neither told the other. They each worked it out separately and held onto it. It’s a communication gap that if closed would have resolved the case faster and cleaner. But Jack can see that Nadia has a chip on her shoulder about keeping up with him, and he quietly lets her work things out at her own pace rather than swooping in. It’s the same thing he’s done across all five books. It’s still very him.
Best Part of This Book
Ty Cypher showing up. Finding out there was a Nadia Stafford book featuring a Rockton character was enough to make me read a physical book for the first time in years. The crossover is handled perfectly, his connection to Angela is a genuinely good twist, and seeing him through Nadia and Jack’s eyes adds another dimension to a character Rockton readers already love.
The Steam Rating Breakdown
🔥 — No heat. Jack and Nadia are committed and happy and this book is a thriller from start to finish. There is a proposal. That’s the most romantic thing in it and it’s perfect.
The Ending — Satisfied or Disappointed?
Completely satisfied. The Cypher reveal, the proposal, the way everything ties together cleanly — this is the right ending for this series. I genuinely hope it isn’t the last one.
Would I Reread It?
Yes. In ebook again if I have to. But I would prefer audiobook 🙏🙏🙏
Who Is This For
Everyone. Nadia Stafford series fans obviously, but also Rockton and Haven’s Rock readers who want to see Cypher show up somewhere unexpected. Anyone who has been following Jack and Nadia across four books and needs to see where they land.
Where to Get This Book
📖 Physical Book
Amazon | Bookshop.org
📱 Ebook
Amazon Kindle
(No audiobook currently available)
📚 More from the Nadia Stafford Series
- Book 1 — Exit Strategy | Reviewed by LD | ⭐ 4.1/5 | Steam: 🔥 — [Read the Review]
- Book 2 — Made to be Broken | Reviewed by LD | ⭐ 4.7/5 | Steam: 🔥 — [Read the Review]
- Book 3 — Wild Justice | Reviewed by LD | ⭐ 5/5 | Steam: 🔥🔥 — [Read the Review]
- Book 4 — Double Play | Reviewed by LD | ⭐ 5/5 | Steam: 🔥 — [Read the Review]
- Book 5 — Perfect Victim | Reviewed by LD | ⭐ 5/5 | Steam: 🔥 — [Read the Review]
- Full Series Review — Is the Nadia Stafford Series Worth Reading? — Coming Soon
Ready for more from LD? Find them here
Plot Twisted. 🔥
📖 | Series: Nadia Stafford Book 5 | Genre: Thriller, Crime | Steam: 🔥