Review: The Big Kahuna

The Big Kahuna by Janet Evanovich
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

2.5 stars. On one hand, this book was what one would expect from this series: campy fun. After listening to the Adam Walsh story, that's exactly what I needed!

On the other, there were a lot of little details that were a bit confusing. I'm guessing that comes from Janet's son being the co-author on this one instead of Lee Goldberg and I'm wondering if Peter read the first five books in this series before agreeing to help write this one.

The premise was good - instead of searching for stolen items or trying to stop a heist, this time Kate and Nick are sent after a missing person. What's supposed to be a quick assignment, basically to keep them from wracking up any more huge expenses for the FBI, turns out to be a case of not only a missing person but also of stolen intellectual property that takes Kate and Nick around the world starting in Hawaii and ending up in Prague. So much for keeping those expenses down!

The book did include the head-shake worthy absurdities that makes this series fun and the descriptions of Hawaii were breathtaking. But other things just did not jive: apparently Kate's boss forgot that Nick's involvement with the FBI is beyond top secret. And Kate apparently forgot that she and Nick have crossed the line into a romantic relationship. There's also a comment Kate makes to her father that actually made me say out loud "Not to mention, he lives with your sister." Apparently, she forgot that too.

I'm not sure if the departure from the regular crew was deliberate or not. Jake was the only one recruited, which was good as it allowed him to get to meet and get to know Nick a little bit...oh wait. That already happened. He's the one who pointed out to Kate she's in love with the man!
Vicky, the Instagram supermodel trophy wife of the missing person, and Kate's cubicle mate, Cosmo, were more annoying than funny and were definitely poor substitutes for Willy and Boyd!

The premise of this series is supposed to be that in order to stay out of jail, Nick has to help catch the FBI's 10 most wanted. Which is genius, in that once Kate and Nick catch one, another moves into that place allowing this series to go on for as long as the authors want it to. And the authors have an out: if they want to end the series, they simply write it so Nick has to go to jail and Kate either gets reassigned or resigns. Hopefully, there will be a book 7 and it will start with Kate or Nick waking up from this book having been a bad dream and the series will get back on track!

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