Vanessa Michael Munroe, chameleon and information hunter, has a reputation for getting things done: dangerous and not quite legal things that have taken her undercover into some of the world’s deadliest places. Still healing from a Somali hijacking gone wrong and a brutal attack that left her near death, Munroe joins her lover, Miles Bradford, in Japan where he’s working as a security consultant protecting high-value technology from industrial espionage. In the domesticity of their routine she finds long sought-after peace—until Bradford is arrested for murder, and the same interests who targeted him come after her, too.
Searching for answers and fighting to stay alive, Munroe will soon discover how far she’ll go to save Bradford from spending the next twenty years in locked-up isolation; how many laws she’ll break when the truth seems worse than his lies; and who to trust and who she must kill. Because she’s a strategist and hunter with a predator’s instincts, and the man she loves has just stabbed her in the back.
With break-neck pacing, incendiary prose, and an unforgettable cast of characters, The Mask features Vanessa Michael Munroe: a brilliant, lethal heroine who will stop at nothing to find the truth, no matter what it may cost.
When I started reading this book, I did not realize that it was the fifth book in the series and while these books can sort of be read as standalones, I think knowing Vanessa/Micheal's background story is a little important in getting to know her character. I think it would have helped me better understand her history with Miles Bradford.
Anyway, I found that the story is a little dull at the beginning, so much that I considered not reading the rest of it and putting it aside as a "Did Not Finish." It's just so routine and dull that I had a hard time not skipping ahead in hopes of the story getting better. I hit 30% when it finally did start looking up, and 58% when my interest was all-in. I'm disappointed it took until I was past the 50% mark to get fully invested in this book, because I feel it was a waste of my time. But then the action started, and the story really took off with mind-games and trying to figure out who-dun-it. I was actually grinning at 82% because of the mind games going on between Vanessa and one of the guilty parties. It was entertaining to read about, which is why I really resent the first half of the book for taking up space and taking so long to get to the great parts of this book.
This is a good book, but it isn't great, which is why it was docked 1 platypire. The 2nd platypire was docked because the first half of the book was not memorable in any way nor was it exciting or thrilling to read about. It was dull and lifeless, and the book could have been better off without it.
But, I did like the action and spy/espionage portion of it, as well as how brilliantly the author describes her scenes in a foreign country. I felt like I was there and could envision the places being described, which is something I greatly admire. So mad props to the author for that.
Because of all of these factors, I give The Mask 3/5 Platypires.