This is the first in a series. It’s one of those annoying series where every single title has a keyword in it. Often the keyword is the improbable name of the main character, but in this case it’s 'spy'. Tedious. What's the fear here - that readers are so shallow or so stupid, or both, that they can't recognize this book is by the same author as that book? Personally, I don't write for people that stupid. Even my children's books aren't aimed at adults who are so lacking in basic mental wherewithal. You don't have to be particularly smart or highly literate to read my books, but you do have to have a functional cortex.
The plot is that "middle-aged Aydan Kelly" is mistaken for a spy and then evidently becomes one since this series runs to another dozen novels at least. It's one of those wishful thinking deals, especially when the main character is pretty much (give or take a few) the same age as the author. But note that age: the main character is 46. There's nothing wrong with that until something happens in the first chapter which I shall shortly get to.
I actually applaud the desire for an author to promote an older woman as a main character in something that's not a pure romance story or one of those tedious multi-generational stories, or the even more tedious 'old friends reunion' stories where a tragic or dangerous secret is unleashed! The problem is that this is a series starter and a first person novel, which sets it up to fail in my long and bitter experience with these things, because a series is essentially the same story told over and over again with a few tweaks. I know it's beloved by authors, because they can lazily recycle the same characters and plots, and by publishers who can vacuum up the profits from their hopefully addicted 'users', but first person is worst person for me, and I have a problem with series unless they're really well done.
Case in point: the story begins with Aydan waking up from some sort of unconscious state to find herself with a paramedic standing over her. Yet her first person voice description is perfectly fluent and natural with no memory gaps or confusion. This is why first person truly sucks as a descriptive voice for a novel. It’s completely unrealistic and nauseatingly self-centered. I began skipping sections of this from almost the first page because of the tedious predictability, although kudos to the author for having a doctor introduce himself with "I'm Doctor Ross" rather than the absurd, "My name is Doctor Roth." No, dipshit, your name is Roth. Your title is Doctor. No, I don't cut slack for crappy writing, especially when I'm already annoyed by the first person voice. Recently I went through my unread print book collection and summarily tossed out everything that was in first person even though I hadn't read it because I was so profoundly sick of this voice!
The book description isn't typically written by the author, but it's often written, it would seem, by some moron who hasn't even read the novel. That has to be why this one claims that Aydan is a bad-ass, yet she's still wearing her wedding ring despite her husband having gone two years before. That doesn't translate to 'bad-ass' to me. Where I quit reading this was in the first chapter when - seeing a guy who is described insultingly as 'beefcake' come out of her trunk and into the car, bearing a gun - Aydan slams on the brakes and dives out of the car, which has already begun moving again, and rolls away as the car continues on downhill. No. Just no. This woman is 46, remember? She's not an athlete. She's a bookkeeper. This is not to say that no bookkeeper is fit, but this one 'flung' herself out of the car as it was 'picking up speed'? Was she on some of that speed I wonder? It was far too improbable. No. A bad ass would have disarmed the guy and demanded an explanation from him. This woman is not a badass. She's an idiot.
The stupid book description also has it that this woman has a penchant for profanity, but a search of the book, out of curiosity, revealed no use of any four-letter words other than 'shit'. So profanity is a lie. Maybe the text claimed she used profanity such as where it read, 'after a few moments of heartfelt profanity", but there isn't actually any, other than that one word which is used many times. So again, book description misleading. Which I resent. I gave up on this because it’s not up to my standards for a good read, and I will not commend it based on my introduction to it. I'm done with this author.
