RogerBW's Blog

Chasing the Dollar, Ellie Ashe 02 August 2019

2014 action/mystery, first in the Miranda Vaughn series. Miranda worked hard to go to college and get a job in an investment bank… but it all fell apart, and she's spent eighteen months defending herself against fraud charges. Now she's been found not guilty… but that's not enough to get her life back.

This is a slightly schizophrenic book. On one level it's a light mystery: clearly some of the bad guys are the other people at the bank who perjured themselves to make Miranda look like the villain, but what were they really up to? Bringing that to light seems like the only way to get another job in banking, which is what Miranda's studied and trained for. So she looks over the illicitly-retained documents that made up the mountain of evidence against her, to try to find out what was really going on. That's good stuff, even if it's a bit short on actual financial detail. The fiancé who left her when the charges were brought has moved on, but seems to be acting at least a bit like a decent person. We're introduced to some other characters in the orbit of the lawyer who conducted her defence, and for whom she ends up working. And there's the FBI guy who led her out of the office in cuffs, who seems to be hanging around looking for more dirt…

But then Miranda rushes off to Macau to try to talk to one of the people who seems to have been involved, the FBI guy turns up, and the plot changes gear sharply into a screwball action-comedy, one of those stories where a pro and an amateur have to negotiate a variety of hazards (car chases, ambushes, traitors everywhere you look) while, naturally, falling for each other.

Which isn't at all a bad thing, but I kind of liked Researcher Miranda at least as much as Novice Action Heroine Miranda. This is much more of a lightweight adventure story than it is a mystery, so don't be fooled into thinking there'll be much in the way of deduction going on.

Now that I've finished complaining about what the book isn't, how about what it is? Well, it's fluff, but it's good fluff. The people come over as interestingly complex people rather than just stock heroes and villains, which is one of the things I'm always looking for. The financial stuff may be dealt with superficially, but it's at least not blatantly wrong.

Added to the "excessively light" queue.

[Buy this at Amazon] and help support the blog. ["As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases."]

Series: Miranda Vaughn | Next in series: Chasing Tinsel

Comments on this post are now closed. If you have particular grounds for adding a late comment, comment on a more recent post quoting the URL of this one.

Search
Archive
Tags 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s 2010s 3d printing action advent of code aeronautics aikakirja anecdote animation anime army astronomy audio audio tech aviation base commerce battletech beer boardgaming book of the week bookmonth chain of command children chris chronicle church of no redeeming virtues cold war comedy computing contemporary cornish smuggler cosmic encounter coup covid-19 crime cthulhu eternal cycling dead of winter doctor who documentary drama driving drone ecchi economics en garde espionage essen 2015 essen 2016 essen 2017 essen 2018 essen 2019 essen 2022 essen 2023 existential risk falklands war fandom fanfic fantasy feminism film firefly first world war flash point flight simulation food garmin drive gazebo genesys geocaching geodata gin gkp gurps gurps 101 gus harpoon historical history horror hugo 2014 hugo 2015 hugo 2016 hugo 2017 hugo 2018 hugo 2019 hugo 2020 hugo 2022 hugo-nebula reread in brief avoid instrumented life javascript julian simpson julie enfield kickstarter kotlin learn to play leaving earth linux liquor lovecraftiana lua mecha men with beards mpd museum music mystery naval noir non-fiction one for the brow opera parody paul temple perl perl weekly challenge photography podcast politics postscript powers prediction privacy project woolsack pyracantha python quantum rail raku ranting raspberry pi reading reading boardgames social real life restaurant reviews romance rpg a day rpgs ruby rust scala science fiction scythe second world war security shipwreck simutrans smartphone south atlantic war squaddies stationery steampunk stuarts suburbia superheroes suspense television the resistance the weekly challenge thirsty meeples thriller tin soldier torg toys trailers travel type 26 type 31 type 45 vietnam war war wargaming weather wives and sweethearts writing about writing x-wing young adult
Special All book reviews, All film reviews
Produced by aikakirja v0.1