Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Exit Strategy by Kelley Armstrong


I've read several of Armstrong's paranormal romances, and I had high expectations for this book. It's the story of Nadia, a disgraced police officer turned hitwoman from Canada. I'm generally not okay with books about professional assassins. I did read one recently that was pretty funny and that I enjoyed. Generally, the professional assassin has to do vigilante-type killings in order for me to be willing to read about it. That's Nadia, in a way.

Nadia joins forces with a few other professionals in order to track down a hitman turned serial killer. The professionals don't want themselves linked with a serial killer, so it's all in self-interest. She works with her mentor Jack, the game-playing Evelyn who tempts her with vigilante hits, Felix, and Quinn, who is also an FBI agent.

The five of them leapfrog across the US, keeping their identities secret, changing appearance on a regular basis, and planning traps for the hitman-slash-serial-killer. Along the way, Nadia finds herself irresistably attracted to Quinn, but unable to even think about entering into a relationship because of their shared profession. She takes risks and puts herself in the position of bait in order to catch the killer.

While it sounds pretty exciting, it really wasn't. The only part that had me turning pages was the end. Because of the nature of the assassin profession(I imagine), we didn't learn a lot of personal facts or quirks of the characters other than Nadia. I don't want to just get acquainted with one character--I want to know all of them. It didn't feel like an ensemble, didn't feel cohesive, didn't feel like real people.

I think I would recommend giving this one a miss.

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