Book Review: Special Agent Francesca by Mimi Barbour

Undercover FBI Book 1

An introvert, Special Agent Francesca moves to Las Vegas to escape her powerful, domineering mother. On arrival, multiple obstacles challenge her. She needs to approach a father she’s never met, a man who doesn’t even know she exists. Then she must play the role of a loving fiancée with a stranger. One who makes her question every unexpected emotion he provokes. Craving the chance for real undercover work, she grabs the opportunity to be involved in cleaning up gang corruption in a nasty neighborhood. When she poses as the new owner of a hotel, the deadly-dangerous situation ramps up and she’s forced to fight her way from one conflict to the next.

Sean Collins, Psychiatrist and LVPD Profiler, has never known anyone like Francesca Donovan. From first sight, he believes her to be a screwball but her beauty and maddening personality attracts him. Despite her prickly disposition, which gets them into a load of trouble, her rotten driving skills and her constant battles, he’s hooked. Once he’s roped into a mock engagement with her, his desire to make it real takes precedence over everything else in his world.

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My Review:

There is a lot going on in this book. It’s a little Keystone Cops at times, but since I enjoy that type of humor, it worked for me. I love to laugh at the absurd in the every day. I think my steady diet of BBC comedies in my youth are the reason behind that. The style of humor in this book has that dry, droll, British wit that I associate with the Brit-coms of my childhood. This book isn’t a comedy, but that seems to be one of the features of the story that really stands out to me. The relationship between Frankie and Sean reminds me a lot of Romancing the Stone; it is a complete comedy of errors. The police procedural portion of this story makes me think of the Lethal Weapon franchise, in that we have a bunch of goofy family moments interrupted by life-threatening action and pursuits. This wasn’t the romantic suspense I was expecting. It was a lot more fun.