Review #40: The Heist, by Janet Evanovich & Lee Goldberg

Confession: I love Stephanie Plum. Actually, I love Ranger. I love Grandma Mazur, too, but it's a different feeling than the feeling I have for Ranger. I want him to break in to my house, call me babe, and leave behind his Bulgari shower gel. I just want to go for cocktails and shenanigans with Grandma. My feelings for Janet Evanovich's new character, con artist Nick Fox, lie somewhere in between Ranger and Grandma.

Kate O'Hare is a former Navy SEAL turned FBI agent (and yes, Evanovich addresses the fact that there are no female SEALs in real life) whose career has been largely about trying to capture the elusive and very handsome Nicholas Fox, a master con man. Kate gets her man, only to have him escape, and then discovers that he's actually working for the FBI, and she's been chosen as his wingman. Together, they're tasked with bringing down one of the world's largest swindlers, a bad guy who pulled off a Bernie Madoff-style and ran off with a half billion dollars of other people's money.

To pull of the con, Nick gathers a new crew together, and Kate enlists her dad as a back up. Together they travel to Indonesia to recover the stolen half billion dollars, dodging pirates and other bad guys.

Evanovich is always a fun read, in large part because of her characters. Kate is a bit of a stick in the mud, and I hope that we get another installment of Nick getting under her skin.