About the Book:
The evidence survived twenty-six years. It may not survive Friday.
Navy lieutenant Eli Mercer needs a hidden Pacific Northwest archive to clear his father’s name. But a backdated destruction order gives him only days to find it.
Forensic financial investigator Rosalie Tanaka can trace money through any shell company, but she refuses to call a theory proof. Together, they follow vanished settlement funds from a Bremerton records annex across Puget Sound to the Iron Vault.
Someone is already erasing the trail. Legal obstruction becomes sabotage. Fire and flood turn evidence recovery into a fight for survival.
If Eli and Rosalie cannot authenticate and release the archive before Friday, the final proof behind Blackwater will disappear and twenty-six years of lies will become permanent.
The Iron Vault is a clean action-adventure thriller with procedural suspense and a slow-burn romantic undercurrent. It is Book 3 of The Mercer Files but can be read as a standalone.
Follow the evidence into The Iron Vault before the record closes for good.
My Review:
This is the final novella in a series featuring the three sons of Tom Mercer, a man killed in an offshore rig explosion. (See below for a synopsis of each of the novellas.)
Baumgartner has written a novella with intense descriptions of Eli and Rosalie working against time to uncover the records of the Blackwater rig explosion before they are destroyed. There is an attempt to keep them from finding and recording the data so there is suspense involved. The descriptions of the actions are vivid, describing the papers discovered, photographing and documenting information, sending the packets to the appropriate people.
I was really hoping at the end of this novel would be something like, “With this information we proved...” “Now we know the truth of the Blackwater explosion and it is...” But there was not that informative concluding explanation of all the action these three novellas cover. I felt like I was reading a novel with very exciting and well written scenes but at the same time not knowing the overarching story of the novel. Lots of information was preserved and documented. But what did it all mean?
Baumgartner's writing style is succinct. It is action packed and moves quickly. That means much of the essential context and information about the meaning of the action is left out. I have read all three novellas and I can only say that there was a discrepancy about the number of men who died in the explosion. I am still unclear how the mining claim in Australia figures in.
My rating: 3/5 stars.
From "Following the Trail" at the end of The Iron Vault:
One family. Three investigations. One conspiracy.
Prequel: The Last Shift (read my review here)
Blackwater Rig Three explodes in the Gulf of Mexico.
The official death toll is eleven.
The truth disappears beneath the waves.
Book 1 Black Gold Secrets (read my review here)
Gulf Coast, USA
Luke Mercer and investigative journalist Gemma Klein uncover evidence that the explosion was no accident.
Book 2 The Lost Claim (read my review here)
Australian Outback,
Noah Mercer and Lori Callahan uncover an erased claim connected to decades of mining fraud.
Book 3 The Iron Vault
Pacific Northwest
Eli Mercer and forensic accountant Rosalie Tanaka race to uncover the master archive before it disappears forever.
About the Author:
(My star ratings: 5-An exceptional book, 4-Better than average, relevant and liked by me, 3-It is average, 2-It is below average and not liked by me, 1-It is practically unreadable.)
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