"The trouble with being a sort of Wonder Woman is, once
people know you exist, they either want to force you to do their jobs, or kill
you. Or both."
Wonder Woman. Nancy Pelosi.
Michelle Obama. Although Americans haven’t yet elected a woman as President,
there’s a clear cultural curiosity about what a strong and powerful yet honest
and enjoyable woman leader might be like.
Into this vacuum has stepped
Karen Robards, taking the espionage thriller into the terrain of a
bioengineered super-strong female lead: the determined and yet oddly vulnerable
Bianca St. Ives. Aware that she’s a genetically modified creation of a government
researc lab, and well past her due date for termination and destruction,
Bianca’s hiding out in The Fifth Doctrine
as a private security entrepreneur in Savannah, Georgia, assisted by just a
couple of people she trusts—but who don’t know her dark secret. Robards ramps
the threat level to red as Bianca confronts the only international spy who’s
come close to penetrating her defenses (in every sense). And to escape the
pressures that Colin Rogan’s immediately applying, Bianca may lose her
business, her friends … and her privacy.
Because the trouble with
being a sort of Wonder Woman is, once people know you exist, they either want
to force you to do their jobs, or kill you. Or both.
Bianca’s determination to
protect her allies leads her to contemplate just disappearing. But (as revealed
in the two previous books in this series, The
Ultimatum and The Moscow Deception)
Bianca already knows that “they found her in Macau, they’d found her Moscow,
and now they’d found her in Savannah.” While she works to revamp her own
defenses, she’ll have to tackle Rogan’s mission for her, one that requires her
to transform into another woman who’s already an international operative.
Rogan directs her, “By the
time we leave for the airport in the morning, you will be Lynette Holbrook and
Operation Fifth Doctrine will be up and running.” What’s the name stand for?
Rogan explains that the US military has five domains of war, and this one, the
fifth, is information. “Kind of gives that whole ‘war of words’ thing a brand
new meaning,” Rogan cracks.
Hot topics from today’s news
cycle hiss and crackle in The Fifth
Doctrine: Korean treachery. The spread of atomic weapons. Terrorist attacks
and traitors motivated by money or bizarre loyalties.
Robards writes with fast
scenes and the equivalent of a car chase every couple of chapters. Her special
seasoning is a pulse-racing tide of attraction between Bianca St. Ives and
Colin—balanced with logical mistrust, physical assertiveness, and a strand of
growing respect between two people who would have liked to be colleagues
instead of enemies. But could that ever happen in their world?
Series readers be warned,
Bianca’s past includes more threats than Colin, and some of them are even
closer to her heart. Brace for an exhilarating ride, and a finale that assures
the series is far from over.
PS: Looking for more mystery reviews, from cozy to very dark? Browse the Kingdom Books mysteries review blog here.
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