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.