Jaguar Night by Lindsay McKenna begins with Allison Landon deep in the jungles of Brazil, headed to a village to care for some of the native Indian people. Aly is a nurse with Healing Hands Charities. She and her guide are suddenly stopped by henchmen of one of the most powerful drug lords in Brazil. They kill her guide and take Aly captive. Drug Lord Don Duarte wants Aly to care for and heal his gangrenous feet, a result of being a severe diabetic. Aly's dad is a General in the Marines. When no one hears from her for several days, General Landon pulls strings to send Josh Patterson, a Black Ops Marine Staff Sergeant, into Brazil to find Aly and bring her home. The rescue goes as planned, but can Josh get Aly back to safety with Duarte's men in hot pursuit? They must make their way 100 miles through the jungle to reach their rescue point. Can Josh keep his mission separate from his ever-growing feelings for Aly?

Merline Lovelace extracts two minor characters from Ms. McKenna's novella and gives us an adventure in Peru in Amazon Gold, with Charlene Dawson, chief of a riverine RBC that runs Special Ops teams up and down the Amazon River. Charlene meets Sergeant First Class Jack Halliday and his Delta Force team and transports them down the river to retrieve Sean McMasters, a rogue Delta Force operative. Jack trained McMasters and is determined to send him to the brig for going AWOL and turning rogue. A firefight ensues as they approach the camp where McMasters is involved in illegal gold trade and selling arms to terrorists. But with Charlene's navigational skills and Jack's sharpshooting abilities, McMasters is apprehended alive, so that he can stand trial. However, money buys a couple prison guards in Iquitos and McMasters escapes. He then cons one of Charlene's crew to lure her to the boat. Can Jack get to Charlene and McMasters before it's too late?

Both of these novellas in COURSE OF ACTION: THE RESCUE move at a fast pace with plenty of action, both military and sexual. The main characters are strong and driven, with supporting characters that are likeable and realistic. Aly and Josh, as well as Charlene and Jack, fall for each other fast, as they are thrown together in hair-raising adventures that make fast friends and even faster lovers. Josh and Jack are high-school buddies who played football with a group of guys that all went into the military and became Special Ops in their various fields. I missed the first of this collaboration, but won't miss any others, as Lindsay McKenna and Merline Lovelace continue their stories.

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