THE JOB

An FBI agent leads a motley crew that includes her father into battle against a drug lord no one’s ever seen.

Kate O’Hare (The Chase, 2014, etc.) will do pretty much anything for the job, including donning a pushup bra to foil a couple of well-dressed bank robbers in Tarzana. So she doesn’t blink when Nick Fox, nonpareil con man–turned-informer, suggests going after Lester Menendez, a Colombian thug who dropped out of sight—literally—after killing the team of surgeons who gave him a full-body makeover. No one still alive has ever seen Menendez’s new look, so Fox and O’Hare can’t go after him. Instead, they lure Menendez to them with a tale of a map that locates the wreck of the galleon Santa Isabel, lying on the ocean floor with tons of gold. Of course, it takes a village to create an illusion. They need carpenter Tom Underhill, designer of hyperupscale treehouses, to build a realistic treasure-hunting ship and big-rig aficionado Wilma “Willie” Owens to steer it. Since Willie doesn’t look like any sailor Menendez is likely to have seen, talk show host Boyd Capwell plays Capt. Bridger, alleged pilot of the Seaquest, while Willie works her magic hidden below decks. Kate and Nick also recruit computer graphics whiz Rodney Smoot to design the photorealistic CGI environment that will convince Menendez he’s looking at a billion dollars’ worth of bullion. Last but not least, Jake O’Hare comes on board, if nothing else to make sure that no one messes with his little girl.

Evanovich and Goldberg offer another wild ride. Even if you can’t always tell the good guys from the bad guys, there’s no doubt who’ll come out on top when the Fox is in the hen house.