The Alice Vega series continues with Hideout, the third novel in the series. This is my first Louisa Luna book, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I'm seeing a lot of mixed opinions about this book in reviews, and I'm seeing a lot of it from people who have read the first two books. So, after reading this, I'm kind of happy I didn't realize it was part of a series and was able to appreciate it. But I'm looking forward to reading the first two and seeing how I feel afterward!

Alice Vega is a private investigator who prefers missing person investigations to cold cases of any kind. She was hired to work on a cold case for this book.

Zeb Williams, a legendary Cal football kicker, did something unexpected in 1984. Zeb was supposed to kick the ball with 7 seconds left in the game, but at the last second, he takes it and sprints to the opposite side of the field, aka the Stanford side. Cal and Stanford have long been rivals, so this came as a shock. Zeb, on the other hand, never stopped sprinting as he rushed into Stanford's end zone and scored the game-winning touchdown. No one was able to catch up to Zeb because he is a quick runner. So he raced out to the parking lot and began to remove his jersey and cleats before continuing to run. Since then, no one has seen him.

Alice gets recruited by Carmen's husband roughly thirty years later. When Zeb vanished, Carmen was dating him. Max Caplan denies Alice's request for assistance with this case. Alice got very little information from a private investigator hired by Carmen's family to find Zeb back in the day. All this PI discovered was that Zeb visited a little Oregon town. Zeb was last seen in Ilona.

Now Alice has gone down to interrogate everyone who has seen Zeb in Ilona. She doesn't acquire as much information as she had hoped. She immediately understands, however, that something is happening in Ilona that is frightening people. She swiftly discovers that a white nationalist/alt-right group known as Liberty Pure is targeting people. The property was trashed, animals were poisoned, and children of selected targets were threatened.

Vega investigates this group further. For a short time, this group becomes a big issue for her. They quickly become interested in Vega and jump her in a parking lot. She was badly injured and had to return to California to recover while still hunting for information. However, they have not seen the last of her.

Caplan is back in Denville, Philadelphia, dealing with his own difficulties while all of this is going on for Vega. Despite his disinclination to assist in the investigation of this cold case, he finds himself in Binghamton to speak with Bear Thomas. Caplan interrogated Bear Thomas, who was on the same football team as Zeb. He didn't acquire much information this time, but he did learn that Carmen and Zeb had communicated after he vanished.

He does not, however, inform Vega of this. Nevertheless, his daughter Nell contacts him as he travels back home. Her belongings have also been vandalized. Is it because of his ties to Vega? Caplan simply wants to keep his kid-safe, and Nell has no intention of letting this go. As a result, they'll have to work on it.

When Vega returns to Ilona, she has the bat she bought and some blue spray paint she's eager to use. She needs to pretend to be a potential Pure in order to learn out who the group's leader is. She finds all of the folks that jumped her in the parking lot shortly after discovering who this guy is. She definitely gets her vengeance, and those ass hats certainly deserved it.

As the novel progresses, this group quickly disbands and begins to focus on Zeb's case. Which I'll leave up to you to figure out because it won't be much fun if I tell you right now...

Anyway, I had a blast reading this book. It was quite enjoyable for me. It was fantastic, and I was blown away. I'm excited to read the first two books, and see if my feelings about this one change after reading them!

Hideout is 3rd book in the wonderful Alice Vega series from Louisa Luna.

"Alice is hired to find Zeb Williams. A man missing since running off the field at the end of the Cal-Stanford game many years ago. Alice has one lead that sends her to the small town of Ilona. Alice stumbles into a White Supremacist group. A brutal beating sends her home as a warning. But Alice will not give up. She will heal and be back. And her attackers will not know what hits them."

Vega is such an interesting character. She recognizes that she misses a lot of social cues but she knows there's more. She is relentless and fearless in trying to accomplish her mission.
The story is fast-paced even when the book veers in a different direction from the beginning. There are clues about what happened but Luna springs a little twist. I really liked the final ending - good to see that resolution.

More great crime fiction from Louisa Luna.

Hideout

by Louisa Luna
Pub Date 16 Mar 2022
3.75/5 Stars

I wish I’d read the first two book before diving into this latest from Louisa Luna. Especially, since I already own them. That didn’t take away from my enjoyment of the book, though.

Alice Vega is my kind of protagonist, smart, strong, not afraid to get a little dirty. In this story she is hired to find a notorious college football kicker. Her investigation leads her to a small town in Oregon where she discovers a cluster of white supremacists. Vega serves up satisfying retribution as she cleans up the small town and unearths decades old secrets.

I now need to put aside all else to make time to read those first two books. I love the interaction with Cap and want to read more about them.

I received a free copy of this eBook from Doubleday Books, Doubleday and NetGalley
#Hideout #NetGalley

An easy to read thriller that has sufficient suspense to keep the reader interested, I will definitely be checking out more of the authors books in this series

Hideout, by Louisa Luna, is a PI mystery with plenty of heart. The characters are well formed & interesting and the good guys are likeable. The book's pace was just right and I couldn't put it down.
Private Investigator, Alice Vega has been tasked with a rather unusual job. Her new client needs her to find Zeb Williams, a college athlete that's been missing for over thirty years. What makes it so unusual is that the man hiring her is married to Zeb's college girlfriend. Not only is there a large group of conspiracy theorists that are trying to find him, the client believes that the mystery is affecting his marriage.
Vega is dealing with her own problems. Her ex partner, Max Caplan, is upset that his daughter was put in danger during their last case and he blames Vega. So she ends up going to the small town, where the last sighting of Zeb took place, solo. But when she gets there she finds out that a group of white supremacists is actively threatening the town's residents and she's not about to let that go.

Thanks Netgalley for allowing me to read this book. Vega has a new case to solve in Oregon. A football player disappeared several decades ago and no one knows where he went. When she gets her she finds a white Supremacy group causing trouble in the town. This book captured my attention from the beginning. I cant wait to read Vega's next adventure.

I am a big fan of the Alice Vega series so I was very excited to get an advanced copy to read! In this book, Alice looks into a very cold case to find a missing football player and stumbles on a white nationalist ring. The beginning felt a little slow to be, but it really took off at the end!

Good book! This storyline was very interesting, it flowed nicely and had suspense, intrigue, action, A few thrilling moments and great detective work! I could definitely see a lot of this story happening in real life! I will definitely recommend reading this book! Its well worth reading! Thank you Netgalley and the publisher for sharing this book with me!

Hideout is the third book in the Alice Vega series by American author, Louisa Luna. Cold cases are not PI Alice Vega’s usual remit; missing persons or minors in distress are what she typically delves into. But now she’s looking for the famous 1984 Cal kicker, Zeb Williams, at the request of his one-time girlfriend’s husband.

Max Caplan declines her offer to include him: in the five months since she almost got him killed three times, he has found steady investigative work for a local public interest lawyer, and he wants to see as much of Nell as possible before she goes off to Princeton. Vega heads to small-town Southern Oregon on her own.

Ilona is the last place anyone saw Zeb, so Vega is chatting to anyone who met him over thirty years earlier, which isn’t providing a lot of intel: it’s not looking promising for closing this case. But she quickly intuits that some people are afraid, and a white nationalist/alt-right group, Liberty Pure, is responsible. Young men are vandalising property, poisoning pets and threatening the children of certain targets. Can Vega leave that alone?

Alice Vega is clever, capable and confident in her own skills, and has access to fantastic IT resources, but that slight arrogance sees her misjudging the danger these young men present, to her detriment, and that of her father. A time of recouperation is required but, rather than being deterred, Vega is now even more determined to administer admonitions and issue warnings or threats as necessary. Tracking down the vandals who have targeted her family is not all that difficult when you have Vega’s contacts…

Meanwhile, in Denville, Philadelphia, Nell Caplan’s possessions are also the target of vandals; could this be due to Cap’s association with Vega? Or is this a separate set of disaffected youths. Nell has no intention of taking it lying down, but Cap vetoes any personal involvement by Nell for this investigation: keeping his daughter safe is still always his first priority.

There’s plenty of action in this instalment, some of it quite violent. In the course of her inquiries, Vega has occasion to purchase a baseball bat and some cans of blue spray paint, both of which she later puts to good use. She poses as a potential Pure recruit to learn more about those in charge. There’s target practice on pears with an ageing TV star, a siege situation with a sniper, and a sheriff’s badge prop plays an important role.

It's not always clear to readers exactly why Vega takes certain actions, and perhaps they are not alone: “She hadn’t planned this. In truth, on a lot of the cases she worked, she didn’t actually plan much of anything. Her job was like staggering blindfolded through the woods, holding your arms out to graze the trees with your fingertips before you ran into them.” But she seems to get there in the end.

Is the story poorer for the absence of the Vega/Caplan dynamic when questioning suspects? Probably, although their text messages are entertaining. Does Vega’s (often laugh-out-loud funny) audacity, when on her game, compensate? Maybe, but more of them working in tandem in future books would be welcome, and fans will be pleased that they seem to have acknowledged their strong feelings and accepted a deep connection. The dynamic between Nell and Cap is still fun, even as this incredibly mature teen grows up. Once again, gripping crime fiction with a final twist that is sure to elicit a smile. Highly recommended!
This unbiased review is from an uncorrected proof copy provided by Text Publishing.