Format read: ebook provided by the publisher via NetGalleyFormats available: ebook
Genre: thriller
Series: Jamie Sinclair #2
Length: 282 pages
Publisher: Random House Alibi
Date Released: March 17, 2015
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo
Jamie Sinclair’s father has never asked her for a favor in her life. The former two-star general turned senator is more in the habit of giving his only child orders. So when he requests Jamie’s expertise as a security specialist, she can’t refuse—even though it means slamming the brakes on her burgeoning relationship with military police officer Adam Barrett. Just like that, Jamie hops aboard a flight to London with a U.S. State Department courier carrying a diplomatic pouch in an iron grip.
Jamie doesn’t have to wait long to put her unique skills to good use. When she and the courier are jumped by goons outside the Heathrow terminal, Jamie fights them off—but the incident puts her on high alert. Someone’s willing to kill for the contents of the bag. Then a would-be assassin opens fire in crowded Covent Garden, and Jamie is stunned to spot a familiar face: Adam Barrett, who saves her life with a single shot and calmly slips away. Jamie’s head—and her heart—tell her that something is very wrong. But she’s come way too far to turn back now.
My Review:
I read this one a few days ago, but had to wait a bit to write my review. I needed to get over my mad, because there were things that happened in this book that absolutely infuriated me. It says something that I got so involved with the character of Jamie Sinclair in the first book (The Kill List, reviewed here) that I wanted to grab her and shake her over some of her behavior in this book.
The Kill Shot is certainly another wild ride for Jamie, and if you like thrillers with female protagonists the series is looking good.
But some of Jamie’s behavior in this book will make her friends want to sit her down for a good “talking to”.
The story is pretty straightforward. Jamie’s father, the retired general and current senator, asks for Jamie’s help. Because her dad never asks for help, Jamie is immediately onboard with the project.
Dear Old Dad needs Jamie, in her role as expert security consultant and protective detail, to travel to London with a diplomatic courier and help the courier bring a famous physicist and their companion back to the U.S. using the U.S. passports that the courier has in a locked diplomatic pouch.
Not only does this sound straightforward, but the courier is a friendly enough young woman that Jamie is more than willing to guard her. Nothing in this case is presented as remotely dangerous. And not a damn thing about it is even close to what it seems.
There is a metric butt-load of danger, and every single person in the case is hiding an equivalent load of secrets.
Oh, and Jamie’s best friend and almost boyfriend from college is the British Foreign Office operative assigned to this case. He got himself into this mess in order to make one last play for Jamie. Or so he says.
This operation is a complete clusterfuck, to put it lightly. Danger follows at every turn, and Jamie leaves a trail of bad guy dead bodies behind her. Some of those dead bodies are dead because Adam Barrett, the MP that Jamie got interested in while investigating in The Kill List, has followed her to London and is shooting some of the people who are after her. Dad may have said he needed her, but that doesn’t mean he trusts her to get the job done. But then, Dear Old Dad knows a whole lot more about the job than he would ever tell Jamie.
Of course, now some of the people after Jamie are after Adam. Even joining forces isn’t enough to stop the carnage.
Can they figure out who is behind it all before Jamie and everyone she is protecting gets killed? And even if they do, can Jamie ever figure out who she can trust when everyone (including and especially Dear Old Dad) is playing her?
Escape Rating B-: Let me say this first; in The Kill List it seemed like every man Jamie met fell in love with her. Having one of her old besties start a hot and heavy pursuit did not help ameliorate this particular problem. That in this case the guy was at least half trying to distract Jamie from his downright skullduggery is only a slightly mitigating factor.
For Jamie to be believable, the men in her stories need to stop the romantic attempts. Except Barrett. (My 2 cents)
But speaking of believability, Jamie has a serious problem with her relationship with her father. It’s not just that when he says “jump”” she jumps first and asks “how high?” on the way up, it’s that she knows he doesn’t trust her, doesn’t believe her and will use any ends to justify any means. It’s that in this particular case she doesn’t demand any of the information that she needs to do her job. If he were any other client, she would have made certain to get all the particulars of her duties before taking the job, because knowing what and where the danger might be is what keeps her alive as a security consultant.
She also forgives him much too easily for leaving her out in the cold when the job turns ugly. His plausible deniability nearly gets her killed and nearly scuttles the mission she was sent on. If she was this sloppy all the time, she’d have been killed long ago.
Jamie needs some serious therapy to learn to deal with at least her reactions to her father if not with her father directly. He’s going to get her killed if he keeps this up, and she’s going to let him.
The major reason that this mission “goes South” repeatedly and often is that there is a traitor in their midst. Jamie is presented with clues multiple times that this is true and even the identity of the traitor, but she is too busy dealing with multiple firefights or their aftermath and many multiple instances of people lying to her and playing with her that she doesn’t figure out the real problem until nearly too late.
If this were a case she had acquired on her own, she would have done some due diligence which is totally lacking in this one.
Jamie’s actions in this case drove me crazy.
On that other hand, the amount of danger and the sheer number of deadly situations that arise during this mission will keep the reader flipping pages fast until the very end. And the twist at the end is a dilly.
~~~~~~TOURWIDE GIVEAWAY~~~~~~
This tour includes a Rafflecopter giveaway for a $25 eGift card to the eBook Retailer of the winner’s choice + an eBook copy of THE KILL SHOT.
a Rafflecopter giveaway
I remember your review of the former book and still think I’d avoid reading about that character – she would drive me nuts !
Sorry about not answering you last week. I was in the middle of this book and already wanted to whack the character with a clue-by-four!
Sounds like Jamie has quite a twisted relationship with her father. I’m glad I’m not in her shoes!
Thanks for being a part of the tour.