Thanks to Blackstone publishing and Netgalley for this riveting eARC.

The Dispatcher by Ryan David Jahn was outstanding, the Strangers is breathtaking. This novel grabs you by the throat from the first chapter and shakes you like a dog with an old sock. You will NOT be able to imagine what comes next.

With Ian Hunt's return (we welcome him fully) Ryan David John has penned one of the most original police procedurals / thrillers you are likely to read in some time. Pick up a copy of The Strangers, don't worry if you haven't read the Dispatcher yet (you will purchase it after you have read this book) Jahn does a good job of filling in any questions you might have after a 5 year break in this series.

I loved the way book started, kept me glued to first few chapters. Intense and interesting twist. Then it got a little slow in plot and more emotions. Love that chapters a very short. Overall book is very interesting and fast paced. 4 stars I believe is not bad at all.

Ian Hunt was a detective and Maggie was his daughter. Ezra was her boyfriend. Diego Pina was a police friend of Ian's. Sally De Santo was the woman that Ian loved. She owned a gun shop, and Sebastian Pierce was a gun and drug runner who manipulated Sally into doing business with him. Abigail Tate was a special agent with the ATF. She was out to get Sebastian.

There was a man who had been a drug runner on Sebastian's team and he had gotten killed. His father had found a receipt for guns in his bedroom and realized that the guns had been purchased from Sally. At that point he decided to take revenge against her. He hired a man to kill her. When the man broke into her house she heard the noise and she phoned Ian and told him that someone was breaking into her house. Ian immediately jumped into his car heading to her house. In the meantime, Sally reached into her nightstand drawer and pulled her gun and went to hide in the closet. The guy went into her bedroom and went straight to the closet and found her there. He shot her in the head but she was able to get a shot off and pierced him in the stomach. He took off. When Ian arrived, he found Sally in the closet on the floor. He found a pulse and called an ambulance. She was taken to the hospital and underwent surgery where they removed the bullet. After that she was on life support. Ian called Diego to accompany him to the hospital.

Ian left the hospital and went home where he knew he had to tell Maggie what had happened. Maggie and Sally had formed a bond. Maggie told Sally things that she couldn't tell anyone else, not even her father. Maggie was in college studying psychology. When she found out about Sally she was devastated. She and Ian went to the hospital on a daily basis. Just to sit with Sally. In the meantime, Abigail found out about the kid who had died and went to see his father. He confessed that he had hired someone to kill Sally. He and this man had had a conversation discussing the fact that Sally hadn't died. The father had told him that he needed to finish the job and the man agreed to do so. Abigail convinced the father to call the man and tell him that the hit was canceled, but the man said a deal is a deal and wouldn't renege..

So the assassin went to the hospital and found a pair of scrubs where he was going to impersonate a hospital employee. Ian was in the hospital at the time. The ATF had put two men in the hospital to guard Sally. One of the ATF guards had gone to the bathroom and the other had accompanied Ian to take Sally to the cafeteria to get something to eat. The assassin found Sally's room and when he went into the bathroom he saw the ATF agent and killed him. He decided to wait in Sally's room for her. When Ian and Sally and the ATF agent came back, Ian sensed that something was wrong so he had Sally wait in the hallway. He went into Sally's room and found the assailant. He shot him in the side and assailant got away.

The assailant went to a drugstore and bought hair dye. He then rented a room in a cheap motel and colored his hair. It didn't do any good because he was found and killed. Ian decided that. Sally was not safe in the hospital so he saw to it that she was discharged and he took her to his house to hide out. Abigail had wanted her to go to a safe house but Ian wouldn't hear of it. He completely barricaded her in. By this time, Sebastian had decided that he needed to get rid of Sally because she knew too much, so he found out where she was hiding and sent his men to kill her. Ian, Maggie and Sally all had guns and when the men broke in they executed all five of them. Ian told Maggie and Sally to get into Maggie's car and go away to find some place to hide. Maggie called Ezra and he told her about an abandoned apartment building which is where they went.

While there, Sally told Maggie that she was going stir crazy and invited her to go for a walk. They found a Mediterranean Cafe where they stopped to have something to eat. As they were eating, Sally looked out the window and saw a man who was eyeballing her. Sally didn't want to be paranoid but she suspected he was following them so they escaped and went a round about way back to the apartment building. In the meantime, Abigail had decided to trap Sebastian. She put out the word that Sally was in a safe house. That word got to Sebastian and the man who had seen Sally reported back to Sebastian. He didn't didn't know which to believe so he sent men to both locations.

It didn't take long for me to really get into this book and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I really appreciated the author's ability to craft believable characters. He was also an excellent storyteller. I gave this book five stars.