The Bounty by Janet Evanovich & Steve Hamilton

I leaped at the chance to reconnect with Janet Evanovich, the publishing titan she has now evolved into, because I had wonderful recollections of reading one of her very first Stephanie Plum books back in the 1990s. It was revealed in March 2020 that Evanovich had received an impressive eight-figure fee for the international rights to her following four books, which included this one, The Bounty.

To be honest, I had no prior knowledge of the Fox and O’Hare Series beyond the attention-grabbing blurb above before I started reading Book 7. Having said that, I frequently join a series midway through; it rarely bothers me. In addition, I have occasionally been known to love some wildly escapism action-adventure literature, like Matthew Reilly’s backlist. The Bounty ticks off all the ingredients in the action-adventure thriller recipe book.

The narrative rhythm of Evanovich & Hamilton’s books is swift and relentless. The antagonists are stereotypically evil—you know, maniacally corrupt to the core. Conveniently, the good men don’t care about money (thanks to sins committed before turning to the Lord), and they can access their “I saved their life once” debts practically anywhere (thanks to the military and art-dealing careers of O’Hare and Fox’s families, respectively). And fortunately so, as a variety of far-off places are highlighted.

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Additionally, there are literally symbols and maps to decipher, a series of progressively more difficult clues to find, a riddle of epic proportions to solve, and secret wealth to find—all before the bad guys do and utilise that loot for harm to mankind. This all made for a fabulously fun and entertaining reading rollercoaster. But, at times, The Bounty narrative felt light-weight. There was so much untapped potential, particularly in respect to character development.

Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed the conflict between Kate and Nick. The father-child interplay, Nick’s cocky/corny quips in a crisis, and their unflappable personalities made for lighthearted entertainment. And there were enough allusions to earlier misadventures for me to be sure that this Fox and O’Hare serial would work well as a Netflix version. However, it all seemed a little predetermined as a novel. In addition to their impressive physical strength and fortitude, the characters themselves showed little interior depth or agency.

About The Book

International criminal Nick Fox and special agent Kate O’Hare have taken down some of the world’s most dangerous criminals. The Brotherhood, a large, ominous multinational organisation, is currently their most deadly adversary.

The Brotherhood, who are directly descended from the Vatican Bank priests who assisted Hitler during World War II, are frantically looking for a lost train carrying $30 billion in Nazi gold that has been undiscovered for more than 75 years somewhere in the Eastern European mountains.

Nick’s father, Quentin, who taught him everything he knows, is the only one who can uncover the treasure and destroy the Brotherhood, according to Kate and Nick. They must also rely on Kate’s father, Jake, who possesses the same tenacity and determination as his daughter as the stakes rise. Sadly, they are unable to agree on anything.

In the largest adventure of their lives, Kate, Nick, and the two men who helped shape them must travel the globe in a desperate effort to stop their fiercest enemy, from an isolated monastery in the Swiss Alps to the lawless desert of the Western Sahara.