Fifth Victim

November 21, 2011
In Sharp’s nail-biting ninth Charlie Fox thriller (after 2011’s Fourth Day), businesswoman Caroline Willner hires bodyguard Charlie to protect Dina, her 20-year-old daughter. Three young people from the same posh Long Island community as Dina have been held for ransom over the past year, with their wealthy parents paying the demands each time. Dina insists on mingling with the victims, who’ve formed a tight group, as well as with the brash Torquil Eisenberg, “the son and heir to a vast transportation empire,” despite Charlie’s suggestion of laying low. When another kidnapping attempt goes awry and yet another turns fatal, Charlie realizes there’s more going on than rich kids getting grabbed for money. As always, Sharp injects the plot with enough adrenaline to keep the pages flipping while maintaining the suspense over Charlie’s state of mind and the fate of her partner, Sean Meyer, who’s still in a coma three months after the shootout in Fourth Day. Agent: Jane Gregory.

January 1, 2012

Charlie Fox is a female bodyguard for hire. Her latest adventure (after Fourth Day) finds her tasked with protecting Dina, the daughter of a wealthy Long Island family and the target of a kidnapping ring preying on rich kids. As the list of kidnapping victims steadily grows longer, Charlie begins to realize that Dina and her friends may not all be innocent victims. As she struggles to figure out who is behind these crimes, she receives shocking news about her lover, Sean. The man who shot Sean and put him in a coma is on the loose. Charlie is suddenly faced with one of the toughest decisions of her life--go after Sean's shooter or remain loyal to her duties in protecting Dina. VERDICT Given the somewhat predictable story line, Sharp's novel falls short of expectations. Fans of the series will likely find this thriller appealing, but new readers unfamiliar with the recurring characters may be bored.--Amy M. Davis, Parmly Billings Lib., MT

Copyright 2012 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

May 1, 2012

Charlie Fox is the smart, tough heroine of nine Sharp books. Although British, Charlie works for a "close protection" firm in the United States. Here, her client is teenaged Dina, a member of the Long Island jet set. There has been an unsettling number of kidnappings for ransom among Dina's friends, and Charlie is hired as a preventive measure. Charlie is an appealing character, and the plot moves well despite interruptions to relate her backstory. VERDICT Narrator Justine Eyre's wry voice complements Charlie's personality well, and she manages both British and American characters with aplomb. Recommended for fiction and mystery collections. ["Fans of the series will likely find this thriller appealing," read the review of the Pegasus hc, LJ 1/12.--Ed.]--Kristen L. Smith, Loras Coll. Lib., Dubuque, IA

Copyright 2012 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

December 1, 2011
The fifth entry in the Charlie Fox thriller series, Sharp delivers solid action and a nicely conflicted main character set against the backdrop of the extravagant world of the obscenely wealthy. Charlie Fox spent time in the British Army and underwent Special Forces training, but ended up in the Manhattan offices of a private security firm specializing in close personal protection. Her boyfriend, Sean, sustained grave injuries, chronicled in Sharp's previous novel, Fourth Day (2011), and remains in a coma. Charlie visits him every day, hoping to spark him into waking from his three-month sleep, but doctors aren't optimistic. In the meantime, there's a building attraction to another man that's worrisome. Meanwhile, Charlie has been assigned to guard a rich young woman named Dina. Dina lives in the Hamptons with her wealthy mother and spends her days riding her champion horses and attending social functions where people like the billionaire Eisenberg family throw down. Charlie's only one of many bodyguards who shadow the spoiled and shallow progeny of the very rich; a recent spate of kidnappings has made everyone jumpy and even more security conscious than ever. The kidnappers started with one young girl and worked their ways through the younger set, finally cutting off half the finger of one young heir. Now it looks like Dina may be next and her mother is determined that she remain safe, but Charlie's finding this one difficult. Between Dina's stubborn refusal to remain on her guard and the bad behavior of the crowd she wants to hang around with, Charlie must try and figure out who wants to snatch her young charge and when they will try. Sharp's fifth entry is as gritty and unapologetically dark and violent as her others, although the author tends to spout statistics that sound derived straight from a reference book. But Charlie is a likable-enough character, and while readers won't be surprised by the turn of events, they should be interested enough to want to stay until the end. A taut, dark thriller with plenty of action.

(COPYRIGHT (2011) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

Starred review from December 1, 2011
After three young people from Long Island's richest families are kidnapped, wealthy businesswoman Caroline Willner hires Charlie Fox, a highly skilled female agent in the elite Armstrong-Meyer private security firm, to protect her daughter, Dina. Charlie easily rebuffs an amateurish attempt to snatch her client at her riding club and, in the process, becomes suspicious of Dina's friend, Torquil Eisenberg, who shows unseemly interest in the event. Then Torquil, son of a billionaire, is kidnapped and killed before ransom can be paid, and soon after there are more victims in what turns out to be an out-of-control enterprise originating from the boredom of the overprivileged. Charlie's work at ferreting out information about the kidnappers is a welcome diversion from visiting her lover, Sean Meyer, who's been in a coma for months after being shot on the job. Meanwhile, the moral support and backup that Parker Armstrong, Sean's business partner, has provided for Charlie through her ordeal begins to flare into sparks of desire, acknowledged but not acted upon. Once again, Sharp provides a gripping tale of nonstop action, with a protagonist whose background and moral sense make her more than just a super-tough agent on an adrenaline-fueled mission, or an avenger seeking to right a wrong. With a final twist that will leave fans anxious for the next Charlie Fox outing, this is hard-edged crime fiction at its best.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)