By Victoria Laurie.
Previous book here.
Abby's new government employment is wearing on her. At the beginning of the book, she stomps out of a weapons training session and has a breakdown in her car. When a therapist is sent to see her, she says the following:
"Three years ago, I was a peaceful, animal-loving, junk-food-eating, not-a-care-in-the-world psychic with a small but faithful list of clients, a few good friends, and a pretty mundane but totally predictable life. Since then, do you know who I've turned into?"
"Who?"
"Ange-friggin-lina Jolie!"
Ain't that the truth? What changes have gone on in this series, y'all. And in this book, Abby becomes a spy, gets beat up a lot, and is more Angelina than ever. It's quite a switch for the girl, and you never forget that. Without her usual cast of friends around (or even her dog), Abby's in literally foreign territory.
In this book, a computer system named Intuit that can photograph human auras was put on some kind of drone, which went missing. It's surfaced in Toronto, where Dutch will be going undercover as Richard Des Vries, a bad guy who's conveniently been nabbed by the Israelis, but that's not well known yet. Rick's going to offer up another version of Intuit--supposedly one without a self-destruct button--to the highest creepy bidder. Abby is set up to go in as yet another one of Rick's bimbo blonde stacked girlfriends--except she really can't pull that off, and ends up pretending to be Rick's assistant/business partner. This works out since the real Rick's bimbo girlfriend quits her job and rolls in, and they have to bribe her to get in on the scheme. Both Dutch and Abby get the hell beat out of them, bullets are flying, darts are flying... it's a super dangerous situation they're in and I was very nervous the entire time reading it.
Upping the complication level, another bad guy in the mix--a Russian fellow named Maks Grinkov--develops a mad crush on Abby. And to some degree, it's mutual. Not that Abby doesn't love the hell out of Dutch, but even though he's involved in some bad shit, Maks turns out to be a fairly decent guy. In order to save her own life and the mission, it's better for Abby to indulge n that attraction rather than to avoid it...and yeah, you find yourself rooting for it a little bit, "bad guy" or no, Dutch or no. Without Maks around, things would really be rocky. I normally hate the temporary love interest sort of plot, but in this case, it worked.
Four stars. Good job on this one!
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