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    Review of FIRST DROP by Zoe Sharp

    Thomas Dunne, St. Martin's Minotaur, 2004 (U.S., September 2005)

    It's supposed to be a boondoggle. Charlie Fox's boyfriend is on assignment in Florida and he wangles her a job working security for the software company that's hired him. Her assignment, guarding the teenaged son of a star programmer, is annoying because the kid is a bit of a jerk, but she's out of cold England, enjoying the Florida sunshine, and able to spend the nights with her boyfriend--or at least that's the plan. But the plan goes very badly astray when someone tries to grab the kid at an amusement park--and opens fire.

    Unsure of who she can trust, fingered by someone as responsible for the killings herself, and alone in a foreign country, Charlie and Trey go on the run. When she tries to make contact with her employer, instead of help, more gunmen come after her. When she tries to find her boyfriend, she learns that he has disappeared, along with Trey's father. Charlie is dedicated to her job, but there's only so much one woman can do--and it would sure be easier if the kid she's supposed to guard wasn't such an annoying punk.

    Gradually, Charlie unravells some of the truth--that the software program is important, and could motivate murder, that there are multiple factions seeking the secret of the program, and that she's been set up as the scapegoat in whatever happens. Staying alive long enough to take advantage of what she's learned is going to be a challenge, though.

    Author Zoe Sharp plunges Charlie Fox from one danger to the next, barely giving the reader a chance to breathe. Readers may not be too surprised by some of the twists and turns that the plot takes, and there are a few cases where we wonder how a woman as sharp as Charlie didn't see things coming, but overall FIRST DROP is an enjoyable story.

    Three Stars

    Reviewed 10/10/05

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