Charlie Fox has often been dubbed the female Jack Reacher. That's doing this character a bit short, though. Sure, she's ex-military and knows how to kick ass, but she's a whole different person than Reacher. While Reacher's main problems are if he'll manage to sleep with the attractive women who walk on stage and if he'll manage to survive the bad guys assaults Charlie also has a lot more personal problems to deal with. This makes this series extra attractive to female readers who don't think Reacher is a heartthrob and the series too much focused on violence.
In this particular novel she, along with her boyfriend Sean, are hired to get Thomas Whitney out of a mysterious cult. Charlie has a very personal secret though, a secret that puts her relationship with Sean to the test. It's that secret that adds raw, honest emotion to the fast-paced action and violence and makes Zoe Sharp's work stand out from that of writers like Lee Child, Andy McNabb and Vince Flynn.