This is a guy’s book. As
soon as I finished it I handed it to my husband and said,
“Go for it!” and never expect to see it again.
It reminded me of a cross between a Dick Francis (which I
love) but without horses and a James Bond (which I don’t)
full of high speed chases, bad guys, outlandish situations,
sexy women that are dangerous, exotic locations and a bunch
of testosterone-driven decisions. The lead character in a
Dick Francis novel is always just moving along with his life
and – whammo! – somebody tries to kill him and
he has no idea why. In James Bond movies high-energy, outlandish
escapes happen with a fabulous woman at every turn.
Our main character, Shake, has done his time and is avoiding
Baby Jesus, the drug lord who has the chit on Shake’s
dream – a seaside restaurant in Belize. Then one night
a Crazy walks in and shoots at a customer and the woman that
has been flirting with Shake joins in the gunplay. She’s
a US Federal Agent that is hoping to get Shake to flip on
the Armenian mob that he went to jail for. The customer targeted
for assassination, Quinn, is the classic bigger than life
stereotypical American government official - think of Joe
Don Baker the James Bond films – fast talking, friendly
and FULL of BULL, but he’s the only friendly face that
Shake sees in a sea of murderous intent. The lady agent will
get him killed by the Armenians. Baby Jesus wants his money
when the restaurant is blown up by the even crazier girlfriend
of the would-be assassin. She’s mad a Shake for punching
her man and is gonna take it out of his skin. So he hooks
up with Quinn and the whirlwind begins from the Caribbean
to set up a con to rescue a “valuable” American
historical artifact in Egypt with a little side trip to California
to pick Shake’s Armenian Mobster girlfriend who dumped
him years ago. And everywhere they go the screw-up assassins
pop up. Absolute silliness.
But you’ll never see the end coming, and I laughed like
a hyena while they were sitting in that Egyptian jail!
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