Fox and O'Hare Go Looking for Treasure and Gold-Flecked Chocolate
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Author: Janet Evanovich and Lee Goldberg
Title: The Job Genre: cozy thriller/con When the cops in three cities told her that master thief Nick Fox had committed three brazen robberies in the space of a few days, the FBI’s Kate O’Hare was unconvinced. For one thing, the robberies were simple smash-and-grabs, beneath the dignity of a craftsman of Fox’s stature. For another, Fox told her he hadn’t done it. You see, she’d already caught Fox and was using him as her personal version of Robin Hood: con the rich, etc. Turns out that the miscreant was an old associate of Fox’s who was using the inelegant robberies to get his attention: she wanted a very nasty cartel jefe dead, because he had offed her only brother. Fox owed her, and given that the drug lord ranked even higher on the FBI’s top ten than Fox, his handlers agreed. Fox and O’Hare would assemble their team once more: this time, The Job was to con a well-hidden gazillionaire into the open and take him down – permanently, if necessary. The third in the Fox and O’Hare series (The Chase, The Heist) co-written by Janet Evanovich and Lee Goldberg, The Job is even more reminiscent of an episode of the now-cancelled television show “Leverage” than its predecessors. The team uses mad hacker skillz to find the bad guy and a world-class grifter to dangle the bait. All that’s left is to set the hook, reel in the baddie, dodge a few RPGs fired by his bodyguard, and finish the job. As it is, the action in the book is about the equivalent of a long-format short story or perhaps a novella. Similar to the previous installments in the series, the authors gloss over details of the action and the con, concentrating instead on their areas of expertise. In the case of Evanovich, this is the obligatory sexual tension between her con man and his FBI handler – including frequent references to his nice butt and the fact that he smells good (wonder if he uses Bulgari, like Ranger?). O’Hare is little more than a competent version of Stephanie Plum: this one can kill with a paperclip or a stale bagel (thanks to a SEAL daddy), though she’s still subject to raging hormones at the scent of Fox. Goldberg appears to be a travel writer: the descriptions of the exotic locales – Istanbul, London, Orleans (France), Lisbon – are loving in their detail and extensively researched. Damn, sometimes I wish I were a novelist so I could write off all my globe-trotting vacation as “research”! On the other hand, the characters are flat and monochromatic and the details of planning and execution are maddeningly thin. If it weren’t winter right now, The Job would be a medium-quality beach read for a fan of cozy romances. As it is, however, I’d rather binge-watch old versions of “Leverage.” At least the show has some basis in reality… all content copyright © 2001-present by scmrak
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