Espionage Thriller With Bioengineered Female Lead: Karen Robards Pulls It Off in THE FIFTH DOCTRINE

[Originally published in the New York Journal of Books]

"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.

Second Bianca St. Ives Thriller from Karen Robards, THE MOSCOW DECEPTION

Move over, James Bond and Jack Reacher. There's a woman racing around the world using her genetically modified strength and hard-earned analytical skills to fight for her freedom and a bit more justice overall, and she's fast, smart, and determined. Welcome to the practiced hands of author Karen Robards:

Bianca St. Ives, a DC-area entrepreneur with an amazing tech team, just wants a chance to live and earn her living -- without the presence of her often creepy father figure and the criminal masterminds constantly searching for him. And oh yes, the American government and other special teams hunting for her, too, under her earlier names. Her biotech background, revealed fully in the first book of this thriller series, The Ultimatum, and sketched again here in THE MOSCOW DECEPTION, makes her a target for total disappearance (yes, death and more).

But Bianca's always been willing to take risks, and in this case that means getting back in touch with Mason Thayer -- not actually her father after all, but still the man who knows the most about her past and about the target on her back. The book's title refers to the trade Thayer proposes if she wants his help in surviving: an expert jewel theft she'll need to commit in Moscow, with another hand-picked team eager to share the financial rewards of what she has in mind.

If she was being targeted, if she was being hunted, her best bet might be to shut down the company, put the condo on the market, and go.

Could anybody say, run for your life?

The thought was unutterably depressing.

So don't think about it. For now, just keep putting one foot in front of the other.

Bianca's reasoning and her allies can only take her so far -- and then she'll need a bit better luck than she'd had lately. The question is, would reconnecting with the mysterious but physically alluring Colin Rogan, a presumed MI6 agent who's tracking her, improve her luck -- or send her spiralling into prison or worse?

Great summer reading, adventurous, quickly paced, and just wild enough to suspend skepticism and take the wild ride that a Bianca St. Ives thriller from Karen Robards (and Mira, Harlequin's mystery and thriller imprint) demands.

PS:  Looking for more mystery reviews, from cozy to very dark? Browse the Kingdom Books mysteries review blog here.

New Release, THE ULTIMATUM, Thriller from Karen Robards

There's a time for hot suspense, and sometimes there's a place for romance -- but in THE ULTIMATUM,  the new and exhilarating thriller from Karen Robards, it's suspense and danger that take the hot seat. And that's terrific news, because Bianca St. Ives -- daughter of an outrageous international con man who's taught her the ultimate in survival skills and problem solving -- needs all her wits about her to carry out her own high-stakes tasks.

If you've ever wondered where the equivalent of Jack Reacher was for women, the answer is, in this page-turning global crime novel. Bianca's irresistible, a determined young women making fools out of the unprincipled gangsters she's up against. The first hundred pages of THE ULTIMATUM pits her against a misogynous prince of Bahrain, and she's leading a crew of top-notch thieves to reclaim something the prince shouldn't have. But it looks like the whole night's been a setup, to get to her and her team -- or, most dangerously of all, to her father.

So when the heist goes catastrophic, and she and her least likely associate watch a death trap in operation, Bianca shakes off the horror that's frozen her in place:

"We have to go," she said, and stood up. It took every ounce of strength and determination she possessed. Fire trucks raced up the street, screaming to a stop beside the flaming truck. Firefighters jumped down, ran to connect their hoses to hydrants along the plaza. ...

Doc rose too. "But we can't just --"

"Yes, we can. We have to go," she repeated more strongly and grabbed his arm. "We can't help them. We can stay here and die with them, or we can save ourselves."

Strong, fierce, determined -- these are the key words for Bianca St. Ives. She's also hungry for family and loyal friends, and when she finds them under threat, her own actions have one route only: Save them, no matter the challenge.

Whether she's negotiating terms on a boat at sea or struggling for footing on a snow-covered mountain, her extreme fitness skills and her desire to follow the quest her dad instilled in her drive her into high action and hair-raising hunts -- where she is sometimes the hunter but just as often, the prey.

Robards salts the adventure with a deft touch of sexual tension, since one of Bianca's opponents has an odd knack of taking her breath away. But it doesn't stop Bianca, or deter her. Not at all.

I kicked myself as I reached the final chapter, having only just realized what the book's title suggested; some readers will figure that part out much sooner than I did. More importantly, I hated to turn the final pages. Good thing this is the start of a series, even if the name "The Guardian Series" sound more like sci fi than international thriller. Hmm. When you've devoured your copy (turn off all distractions), let me know what you think. No spoilers, though!

Robards, by the way, is the author of more than 50 novels -- if, like me, you haven't sampled her work before, that may be because a her early work was romantic suspense, then contemporary suspense. I'm hoping she'll stay with intense thriller as her long-time genre, now that she's broken into it so boldly and marvelously. Quick comparisons: Less emotionally torn than Taylor Stevens's Monroe, not as wounded at Carol O'Connell's Kathy, but a bit more complex (and hence engaging) than Jack Reacher. Grab a copy.

 PS:  Looking for more mystery reviews, from cozy to very dark? Browse the Kingdom Books mysteries review blog here.