Twenty million dollars in prize money disappears from a kickboxing tournament, and a forensic accountant has 72 hours to find it before all hell breaks loose in Mindy Mejia's vicious thriller Strike Me Down.
At the fitness empire Strike, champion kickboxer Logan Russo wrings blood, sweat and tears out of clients and her husband, Gregg, turns it into mega profits. The couple organizes an expensive three-day fighting competition in which the winner will receive $20 million in prize money--and inherit Strike so Logan can retire. Two days before the tournament starts, all the money goes missing. Canceling the event would ruin Strike, wreck Logan and Gregg's reputation and anger a lot of people who have been primed to fight. Gregg hires Nora Trier, a forensic accountant with an impeccable record for finding the truth behind the numbers, no matter who it hurts.
Nora's task is complicated enough because she worships Logan and recently slept with Gregg; then her job becomes even harder when she discovers Logan wanted her recently killed protégé to take over Strike and Gregg adamantly opposed the idea. The couple suspect each other of embezzlement, but neither wants Strike to fail. Meanwhile Nora zeroes in on the money, and whoever killed Logan's protégé zeroes in on Nora.
Mejia (Everything You Want Me to Be) tells each chapter from a different point of view, which propels the plot at a breakneck speed while doling out brief flashbacks of much-needed exposition. Forensic accounting isn't commonly known for excitement, but Mejia adds kickboxing and homicide to ratchet up the tension in this hard-to-put-down thriller. --Paul Dinh-McCrillis, freelance reviewer