Reviewed by: BigAl
Genre: Thriller
Approximate word count: 60-65,000 words
Availability
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Author:
“The author
of two bestselling thriller series featuring strong female protagonists, Berkom
grew up on a steady diet of spy novels, James Bond movies and mysteries. Her
natural inclination is to keep the reader on the edge of their seat and
guessing until the last page.
Raised in
the Midwest, she received her BA in Political Science from the University of
Minnesota and promptly moved to Mexico to live on a sailboat. Several years and
at least a dozen moves later, she now lives outside of Seattle, Washington with
her sweetheart Mark, an ex-chef-turned-contractor, and writes whenever she gets
a chance.”
For more, visit her website.
Description:
“She was a
dangerous man's lover…now she's his dangerous enemy.
For Kate
Jones, being on the run from her former lover—the vicious leader of a Mexican
drug cartel—was never going to be easy. But with a new identity, a new lover,
and a new life in northern Arizona, she was beginning to believe she'd made it
through the worst.
Then, in an
act of twisted revenge, Kate's kidnapped and imprisoned by her deadly enemy,
his intention to force her to pay back the money she stole before he kills her.”
Appraisal:
I enjoy
books with kick-ass female protagonists and Kate Jones fits the bill perfectly.
When the going gets tough, she keeps going. Yucatan
Dead ratchets up the tension from the start as Kate deals with hit women,
warring Mexican drug cartels, and unofficial paramilitary organizations.
Survival is never a given.
However,
what stuck out for me, even more than Kate’s kick-assed-ness (yeah, sometimes I
make up words, I wonder if this will get past Amazon’s censors) is the sense of
humor, often in the descriptions. I found myself laughing, even as I was on the
edge of my seat, wondering what would happen next. This isn’t typical of a
thriller and I’m not sure many authors could pull it off, but Berkom does. One
example was explaining that “Kidnappers R Us wasn't known for their customer
service.” Another was this description which was just over the top enough to
get a chuckle from me:
A rusty metal bunk squatted against
the right side of the tent, its sheet stretched tight across the top and tucked
under the mattress with precision. Try bouncing a quarter off of that and it'd
end up embedded in the roof.
A fun read
and, for those just hearing about the Kate Jones Thriller Series, one with a
healthy backlist to keep you in reading material for a while.
FYI:
Some adult
language and mild adult content.
Although
the sixth book of the Kate Jones Thriller Series, what back story was needed to
understand Kate and the story was included, so I didn’t feel like I was missing
anything. Reading this as a standalone isn’t a problem.
Format/Typo Issues:
No
significant issues.
Rating: ***** Five stars
2 comments:
Great review! I'm looking forward to reading this.
Thanks, Laurie.
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