Audiobook Review: The Bounty by Janet Evanovich and Steve Hamilton

The Bounty

by Janet Evanovich and Steve Hamilton (Compact Disc Evanovich)

 

This is a grudging recommendation for The Bounty. As a general action/adventure novel, it is fine, though perhaps a bit simplistic and predictable. However, as a “Fox & O’Hare” novel, it really misses the mark.

 

This is technically the seventh novel in the series. The series began in 2013 with The Heist — the first five were co-written by Lee Goldberg. Goldberg went on to focus on his own original works after that and Janet Evanovich co-wrote #6 (The Big Kahuna) in 2019 with her son, Peter — that entry was a train wreck. The Bounty teams Evanovich with best-selling thriller writer Steven Hamilton and almost feels like a rebooting of the whole series.

 

In the first book in the series, straight-laced no-nonsense FBI agent Kate O’Hare has finally caught Nick Fox, a professional con-man who she’s been chasing for years. But instead of him being locked away behind bars, Kate’s superiors decided to put Nick’s glib, larcenous skills to good use — having him set up “big fish” targets that might be outside the FBI’s grasp — Nick is going to con them into giving up their secrets and their fortunes. But he needs an FBI “handler” to watch over him and make sure he doesn’t break too many laws in the process of taking down the bigger bad guys — and Kate is assigned to be that handler, against her wishes.

The first five books were a brilliant mix of romantic comedy/romantic suspense (these are Janet Evanovich stories — and that’s what she excels at!), and an almost Mission: Impossible feel — Nick would put together the biggest con jobs imaginable, tapping into an extensive network of friends and fellows con artists when needed. The cons always seemed to have hiccups and the fun was in seeing the team of con artists (and the reluctant Kate O’Hare) pull off a seemingly impossible job.

 

The Bounty has a totally different feel — Kate and Nick are still working together, and their mutual attraction continues to smolder — but this time they are teamed up with their respective fathers — Jake O’Hare is an ex-marine who’s always ready to help Kate with a black ops mission, and Quentin Fox is an arts and antiquities dealer who (unknown to his son Nick) has a background in the intelligence field. Through a complicated series of events, the four of them end up on the run, with part of a treasure map that leads to 400,000 tons of hidden Nazi gold…and only one step ahead of the grandson of one of the original Nazis who hid it (and who wants to launch a new modern Fourth Reich).

 

This novel features no big scale con games — it is a global adventure race against cartoonish Nazi-like villains. Kate and Nick resemble the Kate and Nick from the earlier novels, but only in superficial ways. This is an entertaining romp, and Scott Brick is my favorite audiobook narrator, so he effectively brings the characters to life. But it is NOT like the marvelous first five books in the series. I recommend it for what it is. But wish it was more like what it had been. Nick and Kate (and Jake and Quentin) are passably competent action adventure heroes, but I’d much rather go back to the con game plots.

[If you haven’t already sampled the first five books in the Fox & O’Hare series co-authored by Lee Goldberg, you’ll want to go back and read those. Skip #6.]

[ official The Bounty page on the official Janet Evanovich web site | official Steve Hamilton web site ]

 

Recommended by Scott C.
Bennett Martin Public Library — Public Services

 

Have you read or listened to this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?

New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide Blog individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this reviewer’s recommendations!

If you're a mystery fan, join us for the next Just Desserts meeting tonight, August 26th, where we'll be discussing the suspense novel The Red Lotus by Chris Bohjalian. The Just Desserts group has returned to in-person meetings as of June 2021. Join us at 6:30 p.m. to 7:45 p.m. in the 4th floor auditorium of the Bennett Martin Public Library downtown at 14th & "N" St. on the last Thursday of each upcoming month. For more information, check out the Just Desserts schedule at https://lincolnlibraries.org/bookguide/book-groups/#justdesserts

Book Review: The Big Kahuna by Janet and Peter Evanovich (as audiobook)

The Big Kahuna
by Janet Evanovich with Peter Evanovich, narrated by Scott Brick (Compact Disc Evanovich)

After a three-year gap, the fast-paced Fox & O’Hare series returned in 2019, still written by Janet Evanovich, but her co-author has changed — from Lee Goldberg, who co-wrote the first five, to Peter Evanovich, Janet’s son.

Unfortunately, you can tell. The Fox & O’Hare novels were fun character-driven adventures, but I always felt like the events — outlandish though they might be — could actual happen. But this time, everything that happened seemed completely unbelievable and over-the-top, instead of potentially plausible.

Nick Fox is an international con man, and Kate O’Hare is the obsessed FBI agent who tracked him for years until she finally caught him. After he was in custody, Nick struck a deal with Kate’s superiors, to work for the FBI by setting up big-name targets for con jobs that would allow the FBI to sweep in and arrest them. The earlier books in the series took on an almost Mission: Impossible-like tone, as Nick (and Kate, who became his handler) set up a big con/sting, using a variety of colorful supporting characters, and something would invariably go wrong, forcing Nick and Kate to improvise to salvage their mission. And always, in the background, was Nick and Kate’s increasing romantic and physical attraction to each other, never quite fulfilled.

In The Big Kahuna, Nick and Kate are saddled with an annoying and officious new FBI partner, assigned to help them rein in their expenses. As they investigate the mysterious disappearance of a Silicon Valley billionaire inventor, they encounter Czech mobsters, a cybernetics inventor who’s gone “off the grid” into the wilderness, internet “influencers” and self-obsessed Instagram Supermodels. But both the fun and the charm are surprisingly absent. And what little “con artist” business comes up later in the story seems perfunctory. The supporting characters are either too idiotic or too crass, and although Kate’s retired military vet dad is a fun character (he loves blowing things up), having him along for the entire mission became tiresome.

For me, this was a significant disappointment. I absolutely loved the first five volumes in the series, especially the audiobooks as narrated by my favorite audiobook voice, Scott Brick. But this felt flat, and I didn’t have any emotional investment in Nick and Kate’s relationship. In fact, Kate felt like she’d taken several steps back as a character. I’m hoping things will improve in the 7th volume, due in 2020, in which we finally meet Nick’s father, also a world-class grifter. But, I caution anyone who had been following this series, that it has noticeably changed in tone and quality with this 2019 entry. Your mileage may vary…

[If you enjoy this, you may also wish to try the five earlier novels in the Fox & O’Hare series, by Janet Evanovich with Lee Goldberg, preferably the audiobooks, narrated by Scott Brick!]

[ official The Big Kahuna page on the official Janet Evanvovich web site ]

Recommended by Scott C.
Bennett Martin Public Library

Have you read or listened to this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?

New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide blog individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this reviewer’s recommendations!