Ah, another fun read. This is just book candy. Or ear candy since I am listening to these and Scott Brick the narrator is fabulous.

In this one, the Chinese government wants back an artifact that has been on loan to the Smithsonian, so they are sending a high ranking official to collect it. Problem is, the one in the Smithsonian is a fake because the real one was stolen and nobody knows who has it. So Kate and Nick's impossible task -- in order -- 1) find the real Bird (I picture it to look like The Maltese Falcon) and 2) swap it with the fake before the Chinese government arrives to pick it up. Luckily Nick has connections. Unluckily the timeline changes dramatically the and the Chinese collect the bird before the swap is made.

But that is the least of Nick and Kate's problems, the bigger issue is who they have to cross in order to get the bird. The main villain of the story is a guy who in my imagination is a cross between Dick Cheney and Donald Trump. So in other words, a real piece of work. He is a super powerful, super rich ex-secretary of state who now runs a private security/military company called Black Water er, um, Black Rhino. He's smart and very quickly figures out what Kate and Nick did. He is quick to retaliate because he's evil and petulant.

This book is just as fun and breezy as the last book with Nick and Kate as really great anchors. I really enjoy the characterization of these two: Kate the no-nonsense ex-military FBI agent who has the appetite of a 14 year old boy. I love the descriptions of her favorite meals, In-and-Out burgers, tacos, pretzel and french fry sandwiches. And the fact that no matter where they travel -- be it to China, Indonesia, or Nashville - poor Kate will always end up in coach in a middle seat.

Meanwhile Nick is always thinking and scheming. He has more contacts than a phone book and his tastes are much more Dom Perignon and Caviar than Kate's. And no matter where they travel, Nick manages to fly first class, in seats equipped with a shiatsu massager and a five star meal. I also like that even though he is now working for the FBI to bring down criminals, Nick manages to still make money as a side venture by bilking them for his own gain in the course of the con as well. He's still a thief after all.

Since Nick is working on the FBI's time, he refuses to use any of his criminal friends when they need to hire a crew. So he somehow manages to find civilians with an emotional stake in whatever con they are pulling. He recruits a new member for this one but he calls in a couple of old friends as well.

One of my favorites is Boyd the actor who is the bane of every director he has ever worked with. Boyd is a method actor and really needs to understand his part no matter how small or trivial. His scene as a pancake in a commercial had me in stitches. And I felt very sorry for his director in the toothpaste commercial because Boyd really needed to feel the despair in order to understand how changing toothpaste could change his life. Kate is always nervous with Boyd because she thinks he'll give them away. But Nick finds him a delight and has complete trust he'll pull off whatever they give him to do. And Nick is usually right because like Nick, Boyd completely commits!

Kate's dad makes a very welcome return as part of their crew and he's never met a weapon he didn't like to deploy. There is also Willie, the curvy blonde who can fly, drive or navigate any vehicle with an engine.

Still no real movement in the romance department, although Nick and Kate do get their flirt on quite a bit.

This was like the book equivalent of sitting in a Saturday matinee, eating popcorn and having just an afternoon of mindless fun.

I love the tv show Leverage and this book is exactly in that vein. It is book that relies on the work of a long con to get the bad guys.

The main characters are Nick Fox and Kate O'Hare.

Nick is a handsome, charming thief who is always thinking ten moves ahead. He has perfected the art of the grift. Kate is the ex-military FBI agent who has been chasing Nick for years. He knows this and taunts her each time he slips away from her, not in a mean way but in a sexy "til the next time you almost catch me" way.

Kate finally catches him but in typical Nick fashion he oozes his way out of it. He convinces the FBI to use him as a way to catch even bigger, more elusive criminals. After all as the old adage says: it takes a thief to catch a thief. Kate is along as his beleaguered watcher and reluctant co-conspirator.

Their very first case is to catch a guy who embezzled half a billion dollars and escaped to parts unknown. They must find him, get him back on US soil and recover the money.

Like every self respecting con artist book, movie or tv show, they have to assemble a team of people with a different skill sets to help them pull this off. It was fun watching Nick pull in the crew and get to meet them.

The book is very light hearted and full of funny lines and great personalities. Kate and Nick couldn't be more different and I liked each one of them for different reasons. Kate is the no-nonsense person who loves being FBI. She's good with guns and hand-to-hand combat. I just adore the fact that petite Kate is basically the muscle. Whereas Nick is the twisty brains behind everything. He likes his luxury and creature comforts and even in a cave in the middle of an Island he manages to set a great table.

The supporting characters are great fun, but since this is a first book and we only meet them halfway through at first most of them tend to be background. I imagine as the series goes on we'll get to know them better. But of the crew I enjoyed Boyd, the method actor who really takes his part seriously and Kate's dad, Jake. Jake is also ex-military with a colorful, dangerous career that we only hear in bits an pieces.

This is all globe-trotting adventure with lots of banter and guns and fun character moments. Very little romance although Nick and Kate are very attracted to each other. Nick is down for it, obviously, he's a guy. But Kate still only sees him as her arch-nemesis, a criminal she is forced to work with. But I would guess at some point they'll get together. The signs are too glaring for it not to happen.

Edited to add: I listened to this in audio and the narrator, Scott Brick,  was great. He has a nice rich voice and is good with accents. And he didn't do that really annoying thing that some male narrators do by doing a high falsetto when doing the female character voices.

Originally read in 1995, re-read 2016

The year is 2058. Prostitution is legal and licensed, guns are considered antiques akin to the crossbow, real coffee and meat are hideously expensive, and Eve Dallas is one of New York's finest.

She is called to the scene of a crime where a Licensed Companion is found murdered and the weapon of choice is a gun. Guns are kept in museums or are in private collections of the rich. One such private collector is the handsome billionaire Roarke (no last name, just Roarke). He becomes a prime suspect. Even though two other victims are murdered by the same MO, the first victim was the granddaughter of a state senator who has an eye toward the presidency. The powerful family puts pressure on Eve to find the murderer while simultaneously using her death further their conservative political agenda.

As Eve continues her investigation she grows closer to Roarke and learns some surprising truths about her victim.

I bought and read this book back in 1995 when it was first published. Having followed Nora Roberts from her Silhouettes to her mass market novels, I figured I was prepared for what she was writing under this newfangled pseudonym.

I was not prepared for Eve Dallas. I honestly don't think that at the time any Nora Roberts fan was at all prepared for what JD Robb had to say.

Eve Dallas was very different from any romance heroine at the time (and I would also argue even now). She's a hard, tough bare-knuckled brawler who has such a clear moral center and a commitment to justice that you feel almost righteous as you read about her. Truthfully it is a misnomer to consider Eve a romance heroine or these books truly romance. They are not. They are police procedurals. But because the writer is Nora Roberts and they feature prominently the romance of Eve and Roarke, it is difficult not to consider them alongside other romances. They are more a mystery-romance-futuristic-thriller hybrid.

The first chapter was great.

The rest of the book not so much. Right from the second chapter, the characters & the writing felt obvious and flat.

I ended up skimming some and reading some. There were parts where I got the flashes of the really great that I had seen in the first chapter, but again there were more places where the book felt plotty and obvious. The last chapter was one of those 'all is revealed' dealies and ended in such a way that I suspect there may be a sequel? Because although the mystery was solved there were things that were left really unresolved.

I had a great time reading this. Boo! to the fact that I was reading it during a time of year when my work-load is at its heaviest so I couldn't tear through it like I needed to, but I managed to grab moments to dive back in.

I love, love, loved the first book Spotless in this series. Mainly because it hit a sweet spot for me in reading I didn't even know I needed. It was funny, had a romance (even if I would not consider it a romance novel), had adventure, bad-ass characters, smart characters, great quotable lines, and some irreverence -- basically it hit my bent sense of humor in exactly the right place. But probably the best thing about it was that it felt fresh. it wasn't something I've read 1,000 times before.

This book continues in that vein. We get more of the geek-heroine Island who is a computer engineer. And we get more of the OCD but super sexy assassin March.

In this one they start off the book apart because at the end of the previous book, March has left Island alone for her own good. So she has moved on to a new boyfriend, Alex. I won't say anything about Alex because...spoilers... but I will say I was very suspicious of Alex from the jump. He felt too convenient. And, really, he just wasn't March.

The main plot if about a piece of security software that can do a lot of damage if it gets in the wrong hands and it pretty much does. Island decides to become a mini-sleuth and once she ends up in a air-shaft with a mouse eating her shoe... well lets just say things take off and don't look back.

Just like the previous book, this one globe trots, which is also fun. Unlike the previous book this one will cause one to rethink their relationships with various members of the animal kingdom including Sloths, Platypuses and baby Octopii (be free Krakky!).  Seriously, the scene at the Japanese restaurant where Island first meets the baby Octopus we come to know as Krakky is legit one of the funniest things I've read all year!

If you read this, read it for the fun dialogue and the adventure and the  throbbing undertone of romance between March and Island.  If you go in expecting a traditional romance trajectory then you might be disappointed because those two are not there yet.

Great series!

Received the ARC from the author.