KILLING TIME is Mike Brown's story; or 'Primetime' as he is known to his Special Ops team-mates. He has been seen in previous BOI novels as a chopper pilot helping them out on their missions. Mike lives his days trying to forget a devastating event from 8 years ago, when all of his team except for him and two others were killed in Afghanistan during a routine mission turned disastrous. Mike was blamed for the debacle of 'Operation Slam Dunk', and railroaded out of the military under threat of a court martial. Eight years later, enter Eva Salinas, a JAG lawyer and widow of one of Brown's team-mates. Someone has been feeding her some highly restricted info about what really happened 8 years ago; and she has approached Mike Brown to help her find out what really went down. Eva wants to find out about how and why her husband died. Eager to finally have the chance to clear his name, he agrees to work with her, even though he knows some things about her husband that he knows she won't like.

He contacts his former team-mates, Bobby Taggart (Boom Boom) and Jamie Cooper (Hollywood), to let them know that he may have found a way to clear up all the mess from the mission gone wrong so many years ago. During their investigation, they get some help from BOI in the form of Gabe Jones and Joe Green. They find that they must infiltrate a Waco-type fringe group called 'United We Denounce' (UWD) to get the information they need in the search for whoever set Brown up as the fall-guy in the ill-fated mission. UWD is a front for the arms and drugs trade that had landed Brown in the mess that got him tossed from the military.

Cindy Gerrard is at the top of the game, and KILLING TIME proves it. This is a great standalone read, and a good place for a new reader to start. There is some tie-in to BOI but the background is explained well enough that a new reader won't feel lost. I loved Mike Brown and Eva Salinas. Brown was everything you could expect from a Gerrard hero, as well as being a sensitive guy and tender towards Eva. I also liked Eva, she was a military lawyer with some military training; a real kick-ass babe, and the perfect foil for Brown.

KILLING TIME is highly recommended. If you like Cindy Gerard's work, you are going to love this one. It has everything you come to expect from one of her novels; high action, romance, and a brand new Special Ops team to love -- the One Eyed Jacks. This is an excellent, high-octane read from Gerard. Fans will be quite pleased with the book, and she should garner some new readers with this series, which looks to be a winner. A new One Eyed Jacks team begins to be set up at the end of the story; and I'm ready to read Boom Boom and Hollywood's stories.