Kelly Group International (KGI) is a super-elite, top secret, family run business. This highly intelligent group of hard-bodied ex-military men take hostage/kidnap recovery, intelligence gathering and generally handle jobs the U.S. government can't, or won't. Sometimes they have dealt with situations and hoped to survive the DARKEST BEFORE DAWN with their lives intact.

Hancock has worked with the KGI team in a number of covert situations. Always working a deep game the only thing about him that is certain - he will get the job done.

Honor is a young woman working at a clinic in the Middle East. When the clinic is bombed, she is the only survivor, but if the terrorists find her she will be as dead as her co-workers. After managing to elude the bad guys, she isn't able to elude Hancock. Is he there to rescue her, or use her for his own plans? Can this sweet and and loving woman survive a dangerous situation and a man who doesn't seem to have a heart?

DARKEST BEFORE DAWN is filled with a lot of twists and turns. Author Maya Banks has written a number of KGI books (this is #10) but though she brings back a number of characters there is no hint of the "sameness" that you find in some series. There was maybe a bit too much repetitive discussion of the attitudes and expectation toward women in this particular area, but perhaps the author felt it was needed to make us understand the world better. This is a military based action book, so there is a good bit of gun play and violent engagements but it is balanced out, in my opinion, by the camaraderie with his men, the Kelly family and, of course, the steamy moments that involve Hancock and Honor.

There were a number of times I very nearly hated Hancock, and other times I thought I understood what he was doing and why, and had to give him the benefit of the doubt. After everything Honor had gone through you would expect her to have hardened a bit, but she was still sweetness and innocence until it came to a certain point but you will have to read DARKEST BEFORE DAWN to find out all the how's and why's of what finally got to her, and of course what it was that brought her back. As with all the other KGI books Ms. Banks has written and are in my possession, this one is definitely a keeper.