I received this book for free from the library in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
Source: the library
The Pursuit
by
Janet Evanovich, Lee Goldberg
romantic suspense in Hardcover edition that was published by Bantam Books on June 21, 2016 and has 320 pages.
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Other books by this author which I have reviewed include Smokin' Seventeen, Love in a Nutshell, Explosive Eighteen, Wicked Business, Notorious Nineteen, The Husband List, The Heist, Takedown Twenty, The Chase, Pros and Cons, Top Secret Twenty-One, The Job, Two for the Dough, Stephanie Plum #3 – #7, Visions of Sugar Plums, Wicked Charms, Love Overboard, Stephanie Plums, Plum Spooky, , Tricky Twenty-Two, The Scam, Curious Minds, Turbo Twenty-Three, Dangerous Minds, Hardcore Twenty-Four, "The Shell Game", Look Alive Twenty-five, The Big Kahuna, Twisted Twenty-six, Fortune and Glory, The Bounty, Full House, The Recovery Agent, Thanksgiving
Fifth in the Fox and O’Hare romantic suspense series and revolving around an unlikely pair: an FBI agent partnered with an international thief.
My Take
It’s a pip of a start. Waking up in a coffin certainly captures my attention.
I gotta say, it’s Jake who keeps bringing me back with all those little bits of back history he drops. The dictator he deposed for fun…, using a garbage truck and two motorcycles for a jailbreak…, his wish that Kate would give him a challenge some day… I love that Jake considers Nick a friend and insists on breaking him out. It sure does keep things lively!
Kate’s not “all that good at the whole pretty-girl thing. … She had no clue where to begin. Her father had taught her forty-seven ways to disable a man with a toothpick before she was nine years old, but he hadn’t exactly been a fashionista role model.”
Ah, yes, capitalism at its finest in that leatherworker’s shop in Sorrento, *laughing*
That’s not to say that I don’t enjoy Nick’s joie de vivre. Nothing sets him back. He’s always confident, and I always look forward to seeing how he gets out of this one, let alone how he gets into it! Somehow I missed reading The Scam, and it might be why I’m not enjoying Kate’s character as much. I think I missed part of her evolution in this partnership.
Dragan is worse than scum. His calculations that use anyone, the tests he puts the women on his team through, his fantasies about lye…
“‘You can’t go ten minutes without making a threat, can you?’
‘It’s called leadership,’ Dragan said.”
Some interesting tidbits about the catacombs and how the post office used to use it for delivering letters. Kate’s quick stop at Megan’s house brought in some of the real world with those vocabulary words of the week the kids are learning. It’s a reality that Boyd shoots down with his obsession about “knowing the emotion”, lol.
It’s a scam within a betrayal within a scam within a betrayal within a scam, lol. It’s also one clever escape after another. For sure Willie’s thrilled. She got to fire off her first rocket.
The Story
Nicolas Fox, international con man, thief, and one of the top ten fugitives on the FBI’s most-wanted list, has been kidnapped from a beachfront retreat in Hawaii. What the kidnapper doesn’t know is that Nick Fox has been secretly working for the FBI.
It isn’t long before Nick’s covert partner, Special Agent Kate O’Hare, is in hot pursuit of the crook who stole her con man.
The trail leads to Belgium, France, and Italy, and pits Nick and Kate against their deadliest adversary yet: Dragan Kovic, an ex-Serbian military officer. He’s plotting a crime that will net him billions …and cost thousands of American lives.
Nick and Kate have to mount the most daring, risky, and audacious con they’ve ever attempted to save a major U.S. city from a catastrophe of epic proportions. Luckily they have the help of an eccentric out-of-work actor, a bandit who does his best work in the sewers, and Kate’s dad, Jake. The pressure’s on for Nick and Kate to make this work — even if they have to lay their lives on the line.
The Characters
FBI Special Agent Kate O’Hare is getting comfortable as a thief’s partner in taking down crooks. Jake O’Hare is her retired special ops dad who loves to lend a hand. He lives with his younger daughter, Megan, her husband, Roger, their kids, Sara and Tyler, and their Jack Russell terrier.
Nicolas Fox, a.k.a., Nick Sweet, is an international con artist and thief with a fascination for his new FBI partner. Bois-le-Roi is where Nick has a lovely French cottage.
The FBI
Special Agent-in-Charge Carl Jessup and Deputy Director Fletcher Bolton came up with the idea of the partnership, and yes, they’re Kate’s bosses. Cosmo Uno is the annoying agent assigned to track Kate’s expenses and reports.
The Road Runners are…
…an international gang of diamond thieves using the same approach on each of their heists, and they have a home base, Villa Spintria, in Sorrento, Italy. Dragan Kovic is their leader. His men include Zarko, Borko, Dusko, Vinko, and the snipers, Daca and Stefan. Litija is the lone female. Maria tends the garden.
Antwerp, Belgium, is…
…where the Executive Merchants Building is in the heart of the diamond district. Chief Inspector Amelie Janssen is in charge of the investigation. Conrad Plitt is attached to the U.S. embassy in Brussels.
Paris is…
…the home of the Institut National pour la Recherche sur les Maladies Infectieuses on rue Denfert-Rochereau. The team Nick and Kate put together includes Gaëlle Rochon, a French Uber driver (think taxi) with a fascination for the sewers of Paris. Au Vieux Campeur is one of her favorite shops and sells equipment for cataphiles who like to explore the underground. Huck Moseby, an aromatic sewer engineer, fancies himself a clever thief, except for that moment in The Chase, 2. All but the first of the previous stories included Boyd Capwell, an actor; the huge-chested Willie Owens who can drive or pilot anything; Chet Kershaw is a professional makeup artist and special effects master; Tom Underhill specializes in fabulous playhouses, tree houses, and more, and can build anything; and, Joe Morey is a wizard with electronics.
Jake’s team includes Walter “Eagle Eye” Wurzel with his sniper skills (The Chase; yes, he had his cataract surgery), Antoine Killian is former French Special Ops, Robin Mannering was in the British Army’s Special Reconnaissance Regiment and a lady killer, and a dozen American commandos on standby. What can I say? They’re bored.
Andy is Jake’s golf partner. Spintriae refers to both coin and victims from the days of the Roman Emperor Tiberius. Sergei Andropov is a bioweapons scientist working with Biopreparat, who escaped when the Soviet Union collapsed.
The Cover and Title
The cover is a puzzle, an orange one with black silhouettes of Kate facing us and Nicolas looking off to the side. Evanovich’s name is in a large font with Goldberg’s name much smaller. Both are an embossed white with a gold outline. The title is at the bottom in an embossed gold with a red outline. The series information is in a drop-shadowed white at the very bottom.
The title is The Pursuit of a deadly agent that could kill millions.
