CHAOS

The latest stand-alone from the chronicler of Eve Duncan and her remarkable family tells the story of an equally remarkable bunch of freelance law enforcers arrayed against a nefarious mercenary.

Jorge Masenak has outdone himself with his latest coup: Stealing a dozen racehorses lodged at Morocco’s St. Eldon’s Academy, kidnapping 59 students from the girls school, passing them around to his confederates, and threatening to execute them if any government agency makes a move against him. Cue the entrance of rogue CIA agent Alisa Flynn, who promptly persuades tech mogul Gabe Korgan to help her rescue the girls. Alisa is particularly close to Sasha Nalano, her official ward, who’s a wizard with horses, and Sasha is especially close to Chaos, an ill-tempered stallion with preternatural speed—so close that girl and horse communicate telepathically. Enlisting soldier of fortune John Gilroy to help with logistics, Alisa and Korgan quickly devise a plan to rescue the hostages. But Masenak escapes, taking Sasha and Chaos, whom he’s determined to have Sasha train on a dramatically accelerated schedule so he can be raced one-on-one against Nightshade, the Triple Crown winner owned by ruthless lumber baron Marcus Reardon. Instead of sweating the details of plotting or characterization, Johansen sets this modern swashbuckler in an alternative reality in which the heroes can infiltrate the villain’s armored strongholds at will, characters compare each other to Wonder Woman and Indiana Jones, and the software has powers as superhuman as the people who develop and use it in the field.

Everything and everybody is larger than life yet somehow smaller than life as well.