Former whistleblower Nora Trier has built a successful career as a forensic accountant.  For the last 15 years, she has spent her days combing through financial records searching out fraud, but she's still surprised by her newest case.  Strike, a billion-dollar home-grown premium athletics brand, is on the verge of hosting a huge kickboxing competition with an unprecedented prize—the winner earns $20 million and the chance to be Strike's new spokesperson.  The problem?  The coveted prize money has gone missing.  Strike's owners, Gregg Abbott and his wife, famous kickboxing champion Logan Russo, have suspicions about where it might be and who might have taken it, but no one knows for sure.  With one week before it's to be awarded, the money needs to be found.  Gregg is convinced that only Nora has the expertise to find it.

Nora prides herself on her objectivity, but she has more than one secret connection to Strike.  Can she investigate the company fairly?  The further she delves into its financial transactions as well as the personal lives of its owners and employees, the more concerned she becomes.  With whispers of embezzlement, betrayal, and sabotage in the air, Nora's not sure what to believe.  All she knows is that the evidence is leading in a disturbing direction.  As she gets closer and closer to the truth, Nora's position becomes more and more dangerous.  Someone doesn't want her to find out what's really happening at Strike.  Who would do the unthinkable to keep the truth hidden?

I enjoyed the two books I've read by Mindy Mejia, so I picked up her newest assuming it would be just as enticing.  Strike Me Down definitely sucked me in and kept me reading.  I whipped through its pages because I wanted to know what was going to happen next.  The plot kept me guessing, which is something I always appreciate in mysteries/thrillers.  Unfortunately, though, I just could not stand any of the novel's main characters.  Nora and Logan are both cold, selfish women who are admirable in some ways but still almost wholly unlikable.  Gregg is greedy, unfaithful, and overly obsessed with Strike.  By the end of the novel, I found all of them so repulsive that I didn't care much what happened to any of them.  So, while Strike Me Down is an engrossing page turner that held my attention, for me it ended up being a depressing, dissatisfying read because I hated the characters so much.  Bummer.

(Readalikes:  No specific titles are coming to mind.  You?)