Veena’s review of Wired (Buchanan/FBI, Book 13) by Julie Garwood
Contemporary Romance published by Berkley 04 Jul 17
I’ve been a fan of Ms. Garwood for a long time. I really enjoy her tongue-in-cheek humor and her quirky female characters. This story is no exception in that Allison is a kick-ass character.
There is a mole in the FBI who is exposing hidden facts known to a select few and jeopardizing long-standing FBI sting operations. Special Agents in Charge Liam Scott and Alec Buchanan are desperate to nail down and close this leak. When they solicit Alec’s sister and computer programmer extraordinaire Jordyn for help, they find that Jordyn’s friend Allison might be even better than Jordyn. But Allison doesn’t want anything to do with the FBI, and it’s going to be Liam’s pleasure to convince her otherwise.
Allison is brilliant. She’s at the cusp of starting a new life on her own terms, leaving her troubles behind. Her past has included a few Robin Hood-like attempts at skirting the edge of the law and helping out people. She definitely does not want or need a connection to the FBI. Liam and Alec are desperate and are willing to do anything to bring her on board, including granting her immunity. Liam also goes one step further and, against his better judgement, gets her cousin released from jail.
Mr. Phillips, director of the FBI cyber crimes unit, doesn’t seem exactly overjoyed to have Allison join his team, but when she quickly and efficiently exposes the leak, he wants to tie her up with a tracking bracelet and an ironclad contract and two agents to guard her at all times.
Through a series of fun encounters between Liam, Alec, Jordyn, and Jordyn’s husband Noah, we get to learn a lot more about Allison. I truly enjoyed the deer-in-the-headlights dinner date between Allison, Liam, her sister Charlotte and Charlotte’s husband. A nervous Allison downs Liam’s drinks and crunches all the ice as her sister tries to get beneath the covers of her relationship with Liam. It’s not all sweetness and light for Allison. Her relatives from hell continue to harass her. The criminal elements who are trying to market her ground-breaking stolen software want her to plug in the missing puzzle pieces that will complete it and allow them to sell it. And then if that isn’t enough crap in a girl’s life, the director of the FBI unit, whose team was exposed in the FBI leak, is gunning for her.
Fortunately for Allison, Liam is sticking close and personal. Other than he was born in Australia and swam with sharks and travels the world and spends a lot of time on the phone working, we don’t really get to know Liam well. He does have a talent to show up at the right place at the right time to be there for Allison. I just wish that Ms. Garwood had fleshed out Liam’s character a little more, which would have sucked me into the relationship and made the story a compelling, can’t-put-this-down-till-it’s-done kinda story.
Grade: B
Summary:
A beautiful computer hacker and a bad-boy FBI agent must collaborate—in more ways than one—in the sizzling new novel from #1 New York Times bestselling author Julie Garwood.
Allison Trent doesn’t look like a hacker. In fact, when she’s not in college working on her degree, she models on the side. But behind her gorgeous face is a brilliant mind for computers and her real love is writing—and hacking—code. Her dream is to write a new security program that could revolutionize the tech industry.
Hotshot FBI agent Liam Scott has a problem: a leak deep within his own department. He needs the skills of a top-notch hacker to work on a highly sensitive project: to secretly break into the FBI servers and find out who the traitor is. But he can’t use one of his own. He finds the perfect candidate in Allison. Only, there’s one problem—she wants nothing to do with his job and turns him down flat.
What Liam doesn’t know is that Allison is hiding secrets that she doesn’t want the FBI to uncover. But Liam will do nearly anything to persuade her to join his team, even break a few rules if that’s what it takes. A temptation that could put his job—and both of their futures—on the line…
Other books in this series:
