A smart, spicy romance with a high-stakes plot and great chemistry.
An ex-CIA operative targets a tech billionaire in Jolie’s romantic thriller.
Sydney Parker is forced out of the CIA after a list of her assets is leaked, leading to many of their deaths and endangering her. Determined to track down the source of the leak, she joins an independent entity that “specialize[s] in investigating those deemed too connected, too powerful to be investigated” and goes undercover to look into ARGUS, “the best AI surveillance product on the market.” Her mission is to get close to its creator, tech billionaire Rhodes Macmillan, and, if possible, access his devices. To this end, she poses as a tourist and stages a meetup with Rhodes on a hiking trail while he’s on vacation. The plan goes off without a hitch, but what Sydney doesn’t expect is the immediate and undeniable sparks between them. While she at first tries to maintain a boundary, she gives in to the “undeniable chemistry,” and the sexual side of their relationship develops quickly. Midway through the story, circumstances change drastically—the strain this creates, in addition to the high stakes of the potential misuse of ARGUS, adds strong dramatic tension to the narrative, keeping readers who came for the romance engaged in the political drama that unfolds. The novel is well-paced, at first focusing on Rhodes and Sydney’s developing relationship (with plenty of spice) while weaving in the intelligence thread before shifting to concentrate on intrigue once readers are invested. This is the first installment in a series by the author themed around the Seven Deadly Sins—the sin in this book is pride, or, as Rhodes prefers to think of it, hubris. While the theme fits the narrative, particularly regarding Rhodes’ internal struggle regarding his arrogance (thinking he could truly control ARGUS), the explicit musings on the topic sometimes feel shoehorned in with graceless directness. The cast of side characters is well developed and contributes to the robust narrative, keeping the main romance from becoming too insular.
A smart, spicy romance with a high-stakes plot and great chemistry.Pub Date: Sept. 25, 2025
ISBN: 9781953942982
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Noctivity
Review Posted Online: Oct. 29, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Intrigue, murder, and vengeance make for a darkly enjoyable read.
A woman’s life takes a stunning turn and a wall comes tumbling down in this tense Cold War spy drama.
In Berlin in 1989, the wall is about to crumble, and Anne Simpson’s husband, Stefan Koehler, goes missing. She is a translator working with refugees from the communist bloc, and he is a piano tuner who travels around Europe with orchestras. Or so he claims. German intelligence service the BND and America’s CIA bring her in for questioning, wrongly thinking she’s protecting him. Soon she begins to learn more about Stefan, whom she had met in the Netherlands a few years ago. She realizes he’s a “gregarious musician with easy charm who collected friends like a beachcomber collects shells, keeping a few, discarding most.” Police find his wallet in a canal and his prized zither in nearby bushes but not his body. Has he been murdered? What’s going on? And why does the BND care? If Stefan is alive, he’s in deep trouble, because he’s believed to be working for the Stasi. She’s told “the dead have a way of showing up. It is only the living who hide.” And she’s quite believable when she wonders, “Can you grieve for someone who betrayed you?” Smart and observant, she notes that the reaction by one of her interrogators is “as false as his toupee. Obvious, uncalled for, and easily put on.” Lurking behind the scenes is the Matchmaker, who specializes in finding women—“American. Divorced. Unhappy,” and possibly having access to Western secrets—who will fall for one of his Romeos. Anne is the perfect fit. “The matchmaker turned love into tradecraft,” a CIA agent tells her. But espionage is an amoral business where duty trumps decency, and “deploring the morality of spies is like deploring violence in boxers.” It’s a sentiment John le Carré would have endorsed, but Anne may have the final word.
Intrigue, murder, and vengeance make for a darkly enjoyable read.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-64313-865-7
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Pegasus Crime
Review Posted Online: Jan. 11, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2022
Greed, love, and extrasensory abilities combine in two middling mysteries.
Coulter’s treasured FBI agents take on two cases marked by danger and personal involvement.
Dillon Savitch and his wife, Lacey Sherlock, have special abilities that have served them well in law enforcement (Paradox, 2018, etc.). But that doesn't prevent Sherlock’s car from hitting a running man after having been struck by a speeding SUV that runs a red light. The runner, though clearly injured, continues on his way and disappears. Not so the SUV driver, a security engineer for the Bexholt Group, which has ties to government agencies. Sherlock’s own concussion causes memory loss so severe that she doesn’t recognize Savitch or remember their son, Sean. The whole incident seems more suspicious when a blood test from the splatter of the man Sherlock hit reveals that he’s Justice Cummings, an analyst for the CIA. The agency’s refusal to cooperate makes Savitch certain that Bexholt is involved in a deep-laid plot. Meanwhile, Special Agent Griffin Hammersmith is visiting friends who run a cafe in the touristy Virginia town of Gaffers Ridge. Hammersmith, who has psychic abilities, is taken aback when he hears in his mind a woman’s cry for help. Reporter Carson DeSilva, who came to the area to interview a Nobel Prize winner, also has psychic abilities, and she overhears the thoughts of Rafer Bodine, a young man who has apparently kidnapped and possibly murdered three teenage girls. Unluckily, she blurts out her thoughts, and she’s snatched and tied up in a cellar by Bodine. Bodine may be a killer, but he’s also the nephew of the sheriff and the son of the local bigwig. So the sheriff arrests Hammersmith and refuses to accept his FBI credentials. Bodine's mother has psychic powers strong enough to kill, but she meets her match in Hammersmith, DeSilva, Savitch, and Sherlock.
Greed, love, and extrasensory abilities combine in two middling mysteries.Pub Date: July 30, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5011-9365-1
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: June 30, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2019
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