Must bar the windows and the doors: STRIKE ME DOWN.

Strike Me Down by Mindy Mejia

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Nora Trier is a forensic accountant. She prides herself on her lack of bias and her ability to stay completely independent in her cases. As such, she's able to catch a lot of criminals. That all changes when Strike, a large athletic and kickboxing company hires Nora's firm. They are headed by Logan Russo, a bold famous athlete and hero to the world, and her husband, Greg Abbott, who runs the marketing side of the company. Strike is ready to launch their biggest event yet--a kickboxing tournament, Strike Down, with fighters all over the world competing for twenty million dollars in prize money. But there's a small problem: the money is missing. Greg suspects his wife has taken it, sabotaging her own company. Nora's firm places her in charge of finding the missing funds--just days before Strike Down--and are unaware of own her ties to Strike. As the clock ticks down, Nora begins to unravel a web of secrets that threatens her independence--and her life.


"Numbers, like people, have no inherent quality. Their value lies only in their relation to others and what they represent. Good. Bad. Strong. Weak. These are descriptions given by the counter. The counter weaves a story into the number, a narrative combining quantity and quality, fact and fiction. Numbers by themselves are invisible, much like the counters."


This was certainly an intriguing book with an interesting premise. Nora and her firm are given only a few days to find the money missing from Strike's coffers. Strike is run and controlled solely by Logan and Greg, without outside influence from shareholders. As such, they are self-made. But that's also made them vulnerable to such a theft. I honestly would have liked to see more of the forensic accounting pieces--I'm a big dork. For instance, Nora's company has a computer named Inga who searches emails for clues and patterns. I would have been fine seeing and learning more about Inga at work.


"Five days. Twenty million dollars. The pressure was indisputably on."


The book, however, was focused more on personalities, with much of the story told via Nora and Greg's eyes. This would have been fine, but I never really felt much of a connection with either of these characters. Or Logan Russo, either, despite her portrayal as a dynamic, forceful heroine who has impacted a generation of kickboxers and athletes. Nora makes a series of bad decisions and seems oddly obsessed with Logan for no real reason--a weird focus that is never really explained. She has a past that has led her to her role in forensic accounting, but it never really leads to much in the end. Greg is a focused businessman on the outs with his wife, and I never felt much sympathy with him. And Logan, as mentioned, who is supposed to be the core of this book, just falls flat until nearly the end of the novel.


"For forty years she'd been invisible, a quality she'd not only taken for granted, but turned into her greatest asset. She was the unseen eye, the counter nobody counted, who wove numbers into dark and avaricious stories."


Overall, the book is just weird. I feel bad putting that in a review without much further explanation, but I don't want to put spoilers. It's strange. Yes, it's compelling, in some ways, but I never felt like I needed to get back to reading it. I was interested about what happened to the money, but also had a good inkling early on about what really went down (and was proved right). Maybe if you connect more with the characters, this will be a true page-turner. It's still a tense read and different, for sure. I did enjoy the ending, and I actually felt something for the characters there. Therefore, this one squeaks by at 3 stars.

I received a copy of this book from Netgalley and Atria/Emily Bestler Books.

Blog ~ Twitter ~ Facebook ~ Instagram ~ PaperBackSwap ~ Smashbomb




View all my reviews