Layla Navarro – headstrong but complex heroine of Jeanine Kitchel’s evolving series: Wheels Up Yucatán Thrillers – returns in Tulum Takedown to continue her highly risky escapades as the functional, if somewhat reluctant, female head of a major Mexican cartel. She is bright, brave, and bold, but this beautiful, young Latina is also burdened by a personal set of morals and empathies most incongruous with her role as a serious drug lord. These softer qualities, erroneously perceived as weaknesses by her less-inclined competitors, and certainly lacking in the many corrupt politicos manipulated so easily by them, lead this unlikely heroine into befriending the distraught aunt of a prominent, Yucatecan family desperate to recover a kidnapped niece, who now seems destined for the lethal world of organized sex-trafficking.

In the deliciously exotic, super-deadly, ultra-beautiful, and hot, so blasted hot, environs of the Yucatán Peninsula in Southern Mexico – Tulum Takedown’s sultry setting – Jeanine Kitchel puts her increasingly self-questioning but implacable main character through the ringer as she takes on a seemingly endless chain of bad guys in her pursuit of their hapless victim. Besides informative asides alluding to the bad guys’ questionable backgrounds, Jeanine Kitchel retains her masterful touch for high-octane pacing. Comfortable scenes mingle with moments of high urgency in perfectly timed transitions. Intermissive breaks of laid back drinking with comrades on the beach, imbibing cold margaritas and eternal baking sunshine, explode quickly into gunfights, rape, and murder. Providing the kind of thrilling ride that keeps the reader fully and expectantly engaged … even while looking eagerly ahead for more.