Mon 3 Jul 2017
Reviewed by David Vineyard: JANET EVANOVICH & LEE GOLDBERG – The Chase.
Posted by Steve under Bibliographies, Lists & Checklists , Characters , Reviews[2] Comments
JANET EVANOVICH & LEE GOLDBERG – The Chase. Fox & O’Hare #2. Bantam, hardcover, February 2014; paperback, November 2014.
The second outing in this series by bestselling Stephanie Plum creator Janet Evanovich and Lee Goldberg, who penned the Monk television series novels, features con artist Nicholas Fox and FBI agent Kate O’Hare out to take down one Carter Grove, a former White House Chief of Staff, now owner of a ruthless private security organization, who is suspected of stealing a rare artifact from the Smithsonian.
The artifact must be found and returned before the Chinese government finds out it is missing to avert an international scandal, and who better to achieve just that than Fox and O’Hare (Fox and Hare for anyone not paying attention), if they can learn to trust each other, and in his case, that is no easy matter.
The action opens with a big car chase staged to round up an adventure already in motion (the pre-credits sequence), and then we are off from New York to Shanghai and Montreal on a chase aided by Fox’s criminal associates and by a group of AARP card carrying mercenaries led by Kate’s father.
So, yes, this is the kind of movie of the week, tired old episodic television business we have seen a thousand times, Moonlighting and Remington Steele country, with the hero and heroine panting heavily and not quite resolving the central question of when the big romance will get to be too much for them, and who will betray whom at what point.
It just so happens it is very well done, by writers in complete control of the material, it comes in at just about the ideal length for this sort of business — enough to resolve the plot and not enough for overstuffed seams to show — and at the end, which is where the reader of any mystery or crime entertainment is headed, it is satisfying enough you want more. It may not be a very dry vodka martini in the Ian Fleming sense, but it is more than a flat beer and a bag of stale chips.
If you are in the mood for a palette cleanser or a light dessert these books are ideal, and that is what they aspire to be, mystery, action, romance, served crisp and cool for a summer distraction,
The Fox and O’Hare series —
1. The Heist (2013) Reviewed here.
2. The Chase (2014)
3, The Job (2014)
4. The Scam (2015)
5. The Pursuit (2016)
July 3rd, 2017 at 5:41 pm
This sounds like fun. I’ll check the series out at Barnes & Noble the next time I’m there. If promising, I’ll think about pursuing.
I still haven’t sampled the Stephanie Plum series, though, and I’ve always mean to do that, too.
July 4th, 2017 at 5:49 am
I’ve read them all, and David’s review is on target. My favorite character is Kate’s father Jake, a retired mercenary of sorts who helps them out in each book. I think the last couple were, perhaps, a little less nasty than the first couple.