Taylor Stevens’s The Catch: A Vanessa Michael Munroe Novel centers around ‘Michael’, a fascinating character. I’ve now read the first book in the series (The Informationist), although I started with a later volume: The Mask. The books stand pretty well on their own, which is extremely helpful.

Michael has an unusual ability: she can pick up languages over surprisingly short periods of time, and she’s very good at assimilating herself into a variety of cultures. I love how this shapes the plots and her own machinations. She walks a razor’s edge as she sets up deal after deal in order to accomplish her goal: which, in this case, is to rescue some of the crew of a boat that’s been hijacked. In this book we see how she deals with injury, as well as the death of a person whom she sees as ‘hers’. I love living in her head–it’s a fascinating place to be.

The Catch has plenty of tension, suspense, and heart-stopping moments. My only negative in this one is that the back-and-forth between Michael and a person she’s trying to get information out of goes on for long enough to be repetitive and boring. It derails the pacing of the book for a bit.

I heartily recommend not just The Catch, but also the series as a whole. I enjoy both the action and the wild machinations.


For a longer review, visit my site: http://www.errantdreams.com/2015/08/review-the-catch-taylor-stevens/