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A review by xterminal
Off the Grid by P.J. Tracy
4.0
P. J. Tracy, Off the Grid (Putnam, 2012)
Full disclosure: this book was provided to me free of charge by Amazon Vine.
I did something I rarely so with Off the Grid, the long-awaited sixth Monkeewrench novel—I read it out of order. I'm far enough behind in my reading that I haven't read the fifth book yet, and in the world of mystery-series-cum-soap-opera that the Monkeewrench books inhabit, that means I missed some crucial developments in the last book that made me wonder what on earth was going on in a few scenes. Still, I looked at is as an experiment—will someone coming to the series of rthe first time be able to read this as a standalone book and enjoy it? I'd offer a qualified “yes”; you can do it, but you'll get a lot more out of it if you head back to Monkeewrench and begin at the beginning.
Plot: as we open, Grace MacBride, the head of software company (and amateur sleuth team) Monkeewrench, is on a boat in the middle of the Caribbean Sea with her old pal John Smith, a retired FBI agent. (I'm assuming we get the whys and wherefores of how that came out in book five.) Where could possibly be safer? Anywhere, as it turns out: the boat is boarded by a team of assassins, which leads grace to believe that, perhaps, she and Smith are safer in a different middle of nowhere. She makes plans to, after a quick stop at Monkeewrench HQ, spirit Smith off to the deep northern Minnesota woods. But trouble, as it usually is where Monkeewrench is concerned, is a-brewin', and Grace's police pals, Leo Magozzi and Gino Rolseth, are smack in the middle of what, three days later, looks like a nationwide terrorist conspiracy...
The Lambrechts (P. J. Tracy, for the uninitiated, is a mother-and-daughter writing team) do their usual bang-up job of action writing, mixing in just enough romance for the hearts-and-flowers crowd (though there's a lot less in this book than usual—even Annie spends more time worrying about getting shot than about how low-cut her blouse is, and that's saying something) and introducing us to a passel of interesting new characters in addition to reacquainting us with some old, old friends. If you've taken the journey since the good old days—impossible to believe it's been almost a decade since Monkeewrench was published—then sitting down with Off the Grid will be like curling up with a mug of hot cocoa and a (very, very dangerous) old friend. If you're new to the series, as I said—you can start here if you want, you won't find yourself floundering too much. But you'd be best served going back and starting at the beginning. As for me, I plan to get to the book I skipped soonest; before this, it had been nearly five years since I last journeyed into the world of Monkeewrench, and that's way, way too long. *** ½
Full disclosure: this book was provided to me free of charge by Amazon Vine.
I did something I rarely so with Off the Grid, the long-awaited sixth Monkeewrench novel—I read it out of order. I'm far enough behind in my reading that I haven't read the fifth book yet, and in the world of mystery-series-cum-soap-opera that the Monkeewrench books inhabit, that means I missed some crucial developments in the last book that made me wonder what on earth was going on in a few scenes. Still, I looked at is as an experiment—will someone coming to the series of rthe first time be able to read this as a standalone book and enjoy it? I'd offer a qualified “yes”; you can do it, but you'll get a lot more out of it if you head back to Monkeewrench and begin at the beginning.
Plot: as we open, Grace MacBride, the head of software company (and amateur sleuth team) Monkeewrench, is on a boat in the middle of the Caribbean Sea with her old pal John Smith, a retired FBI agent. (I'm assuming we get the whys and wherefores of how that came out in book five.) Where could possibly be safer? Anywhere, as it turns out: the boat is boarded by a team of assassins, which leads grace to believe that, perhaps, she and Smith are safer in a different middle of nowhere. She makes plans to, after a quick stop at Monkeewrench HQ, spirit Smith off to the deep northern Minnesota woods. But trouble, as it usually is where Monkeewrench is concerned, is a-brewin', and Grace's police pals, Leo Magozzi and Gino Rolseth, are smack in the middle of what, three days later, looks like a nationwide terrorist conspiracy...
The Lambrechts (P. J. Tracy, for the uninitiated, is a mother-and-daughter writing team) do their usual bang-up job of action writing, mixing in just enough romance for the hearts-and-flowers crowd (though there's a lot less in this book than usual—even Annie spends more time worrying about getting shot than about how low-cut her blouse is, and that's saying something) and introducing us to a passel of interesting new characters in addition to reacquainting us with some old, old friends. If you've taken the journey since the good old days—impossible to believe it's been almost a decade since Monkeewrench was published—then sitting down with Off the Grid will be like curling up with a mug of hot cocoa and a (very, very dangerous) old friend. If you're new to the series, as I said—you can start here if you want, you won't find yourself floundering too much. But you'd be best served going back and starting at the beginning. As for me, I plan to get to the book I skipped soonest; before this, it had been nearly five years since I last journeyed into the world of Monkeewrench, and that's way, way too long. *** ½