Karen Chisholm
REVIEW
The Amnesiac's Guide to Espionage, Dave Sinclair
Reviewed By
Monday, February 25, 2019
I certainly hope that anybody coming to this series isn't expecting serious. I mean "Eva Destruction"... You should, however, be expecting all the thrills, spills, banter and high energy action that you'd get with any top notch thriller series of novels.
In this second full-sized outing (there's a 1.5 novella out as well - THE ROOKIE'S GUIDE TO ESPIONAGE) Eva Destruction, barista extraordinare, coffee shop owner and MI6 agent is up to her elbows in blokes ("on her side", "definitely not on her side", and "it's complicated"), gun battles and assassinations, all without the aid of any memory of the last six months. You see Eva woke up with an apartment full of men (the "not on her side" variety), and no memory of her recent past. Which makes it very hard to decide if the good guy is the besotted CIA agent or the misogynistic smart mouthed MI6 one ("on her side" and "it's complicated" - you work it out). It's much easier for everybody to work out who the bad guys are though - they are the ones armed to the teeth and very intent on tracking down a small nuclear bomb that they seem to think Eva has tucked away somewhere safe, even though she has no idea where, why or what the....
Which leads to, as per the blurb, exotic Macau casinos and a millionaire playboy; a French castle (her own, for the full story you'll have to read the first novel THE BARISTA'S GUIDE TO ESPIONAGE) and an English country mansion; culminating in a car chase between a tricked up, nuclear bomb toting ice-cream van and a lot of black SUVs through England and into the streets of London.
Did I mention not to expect serious?
These books are littered with wisecracks, smart arsery to laugh out loud at, and some really good action scenes in which everyone - CIA, MI6 and Eva - get to do some daring doing and a bit of smack and tackle. There's even a short, sharp Molotov cocktail armed French castle siege which really only needed more insults being shouted to raise more suspicions that we've got a bit of a Monty Python fan behind all this.
This is a fun series, close enough to silly, but never too far into farce. Read them starting anywhere if you have to, but the start will give you a very good idea of how the castle came about, and how a loud-mouthed Aussie barista (a good one) ends up as an MI6 agent "tasked" to save the world.
BOOK DETAILS
BOOK INFORMATION
BLURB
Eva Destruction is Back!
Eva is an MI6 agent who wakes to find armed men in her apartment hell-bent on revenge. The only problem is, she has no idea what they’re talking about. Someone has stolen the last sixth months’ worth of her memories and the fate of the world rides on getting them back.
On the eve of the G8 summit, Eva is thrown headlong into globe-trotting assassinations and gun battles on the trail of the mysterious plan known only as Halcyon. Together with a besotted CIA agent and a misogynistic MI6 operative, Eva races across the world to retrace her steps in the hopes of finding answers.
With the clock ticking, Eva must track down those behind her memory loss, as well as battle a foe she can’t remember.
The globetrotting takes her from London, to exotic Macau casinos, to Hong Kong hydrofoils, to French castles, to English mansions, to a car chase between an ice-cream van containing a nuclear weapon and black SUVs through the streets of London.
With betrayal at every turn, Eva discovers she can’t trust anyone, including her own organisation. Eva must face down nuclear annihilation alone and she hasn’t even had her coffee yet.
| Review | The Amnesiac's Guide to Espionage, Dave Sinclair | Karen Chisholm
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Monday, February 25, 2019 |
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