by Zoë Sharp
Five months after a disastrous close protection assignment in Florida, Charlie is home gutting a cottage owned by her parents near Lancaster.
The hard physical labor lets her think about whether she wants a career as a body guard.
It also gives her a chance to think about Sean Meyer, her boss, former Special Forces training instructor, and lover — and the murderous talents and instincts they both share.
On a hot August Sunday, her motorcyclist friend Sam Pickering races up the drive, frantic with the news that her friends, Clare Elliot and Jacob Nash, have been in a motorcycle crash that killed Jacob.
As it turns out, it wasn’t Jacob who was killed, it was Simon “Slick” Grannell, a cocky, daredevil cyclist neither Charlie nor Clare respect. So, why was Clare riding pillion with him? And where is Jacob? Just before Clare is taken into surgery by Charlie’s surgeon father, she tells Clare that they were run down — deliberately — by a transit truck.
As Charlie tries to get answers to questions Clare can’t or won’t respond to, she learns that members of the Devil’s Bridge cycling club are planning a hush-hush event. Participants have to buy their way in. One participant is Jacob’s son Jaime, who seems oddly outclassed by the others. While Clare claims she has no idea what is going on, she begs Charlie to go along to protect Jaime. Charlie calls in Sean.
All too soon, an idyllic motorcycle tour through Ireland turns lethal. Only Charlie and Sean have what it takes to save Jaime and his friends from disaster.
How to break through fear to trust again — or at all — is the theme running through this book. It includes Charlie’s relationship with Clare and Jacob; members of the motorcycle club and, more importantly, with Sean.
While the adventures of the prior book proved that Charlie has deep feelings for Sean, she has to overcome the horrors of her past in the Army and what she perceived as Sean’s abandonment while she sought justice.
Perhaps even more concerning in this book is Charlie’s observation that Sean doesn’t always seem to be able to control his lethal instincts. As her father tells her, “stay involved with Sean Meyer and you will kill again. And next time, Charlotte, you might not get away with it.”
This is a classic Charlie Fox book; you’ll get exactly what you expect. There’s not a lot of character growth, and the series’ story arc is not particularly smooth.
As of September 2019, there are 13 Charlie Fox books:
- Killer Instinct. Meet Charlotte “Charlie” Fox, a self-defense instructor with a shady military background and a painful past.
- Riot Act. Charlie is now working at gym, when she runs into Sean Meyer, the Army training instructor she fell hard for but who wasn’t there when she needed him most.
- Hard Knocks. Charlie goes undercover to a body guard training school at Sean’s request.
- First Drop. Sean and Charlie go to Florida in this Barry Award-nominated thriller. This is Charlie’s first official assignment as a bodyguard protecting a teenage client.
- Road Kill.
- Second Shot.
- Third Strike. Charlie and Sean are living together in New York City and working for Parker Armstrong’s close protection agency.
- Fourth Day. A Barry Award nominee, this book takes Charlie undercover to extract a client from the Fourth Day Cult in California.
- Fifth Victim. Charlie is faced with preventing a kidnap plot involving the Long Island jetset.
- Die Easy. Charlie and Sean are involved in a close protection detail at a post-Katrina charity fundraiser when they are confronted by someone from their past.
- Absence of Light. Charlie is on her own in a disaster zone following a catastrophic earthquake.
- Fox Hunter. Charlie is sent to a war zone to find and stop Sean Meyers, who appears to have gone off the rails.
- Bad Turn. Charlie quits her job in close protection. Turned out of her apartment she takes on a job house-siting in rural New Jersey. She happens to be in the right place at the right time to prevent a violent kidnap attempt on Helena Kincaid, wife of a billionaire arms dealer. With the offer of a job by Eric Kincaid to protect his wife, Charlier finds herself back in the game.
The Author: Zoë Sharp
She wrote her first novel at 15. After doing various jobs, Sharp became a freelance motoring writer in 1988 and then became a photojournalist. The 2001 publication of Killer Instinct — the first Charlie Fox thriller — brought her attention as a novelist. The character of Charlie Fox evolved after Sharp herself received death threats while working as a photojournalist.
Two Charlie Fox novels were finalists for the Barry Award for Best British Crime Novel: First Drop and Fourth Day.
She lives in the English Lake District, where she enjoys sailing, fast cars and even faster motorcycles; target shooting; travel; movies; music and reading. She has a blog, At the Sharp End, and posts regularly at Murder is Everywhere.
