Yep I just RAN to find this one after reading the prior book, and boy am I glad that I did.
Realizing maybe I didn’t read these as quickly because I really dislike the way that Kim is pictured on the covers–long sideburns and black lipstick, it looks like to me???
Wait is that Maisie and Phoebe in the background!!!!
After the first novel, Will finds himself once against at odds with trying to figure out that weirdo Kim. They’ve hooked up a couple of times, but Kim remains a bit distant and non-committed. Will is stuck between enjoying what they have and feeling a bit frustrated, a sentiment shared by the lavender fiance of his hook up Phoebe who YES INDEED makes quite an appearance in this novel.
In other words, it’s a classic story: boy hits up boy with a wyd, boys have fun but then the sun comes up. Also if anyone catches them they’re both going to jail.
Will is trying to move on with a reasonable life as a used book seller, although it’s clear that he enjoys the espionage and stress life more than he’s willing to admit. A visit with Maisie (who also shows up prominently, because she’s excellent!) to a nightclub ends up with Will back in Kim’s orbit, only this time the stakes are higher and the knives that were originally brought to the fight have been swapped out for firearms. Will wants to help, but he also wants honestly. Kim lies as easily as breathing but has been forced to in the service of the greater good.
I know some books suffer from middle book ennui, but I didn’t feel this way at all. These are shorter books, for sure, and I have never disliked that more than when coming to the end of one of these books and realizing that I only had one more to go. There’s a nice resolution here, which made me confused as to where the third novel was going to go–not a cliff hanger, per se, more of a curiosity of whether we’d be finding a new big bad and whether that would work with the shorter format.
