Disposable Asset

Starred review from July 13, 2015
This can’t-put-it-down spy thriller from Altman (The Art of the Devil) introduces the most deadly and proficient young woman warrior since the Hunger Games’ Katniss Everdeen. Spymaster Julian Quinn has saved homeless Cassie Bradbury from a life on the mean streets of New York City and transformed her into a relentless assassin. Quinn, whom Cassie views as her savior, is only the first of her friends whose loyalty she will later question. After a spectacular assassination in Moscow, Cassie learns that she’s been lied to about her target and marked as disposable by her own country; every policeman and security agent in Russia is after her. Her one hope is the disgraced former CIA agent Sean Ravensdale, who needs to find Cassie to resuscitate his career. She leads them all on an incredible chase, leaving behind a trail of dead men who have underestimated her lethal abilities. Enthralled readers will welcome the open ending, which suggests that Cassie and the world-weary Ravensdale will be back in a sequel. Agent: Richard Curtis, Richard Curtis Agency.

July 20, 2015
In British author Myers’s satisfying seventh Jack Colby adventure (after 2014’s Classic Cashes In), a legendary Alfa Romeo Spyder that raced in the 1938 Mille Miglia intrigues our Kent-based car detective. Unfortunately for Jack, the car has a haunted past, and his longtime friend Giovanni Donati, who’s supposed to paint the vehicle, is accused of murdering Hugh Compton, the scion of a prominent local family. Giovanni has no memory of the incident, but both he and his beloved Ferrari Daytona Spider were covered in Hugh’s blood. The body, however, is nowhere to be found. Jack is sure that his friend has been framed, but Giovanni isn’t talking. When Jack begins looking into the alleged murder, he finds himself immersed in the village of Plumshaw’s decades-old feud between its two principal families, the Comptons and the Makepeaces. Full of car facts, WWII history, and plenty of lust, greed, and deceit, this entry has something for everyone. Agent: Sara Keane, Keane Kataria Literary Agency (U.K.).

September 1, 2015
Cassie, a youngalmost implausibly youngCIA agent, has been tasked with assassinating a Russian mobster. She carries out her objective but then is shocked to discover that her contact in Moscow was planning to kill her . . . and that the man she assassinated wasn't a Russian crime lord but, rather, an American traitor living in Russia. Now the Russians are after Cassie, and they will certainly torture her into confessing she's an assassin for the CIA, unless the Company, in the form of former agent Sean Ravensdale, gets to her first and neutralizes her. There are a few problems with Altman's latest thrillerthe age of its heroine (late teens, early twenties) and its basic premise (that the CIA would assassinate an Edward Snowdenlike traitor on foreign soil and then take out its own agent)but if readers are willing to overlook those peculiarities and just go along for the ride, they will likely find the book a fast-paced and suspenseful yarn.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)