Caridad Pineiro More Than a Mission

More Than a Mission

Caridad Pineiro

Silhouette Aug. 2006, $4.99

ISBN: 037327498X

In Leonia, Aidan Spaulding seeks the assassin Sparrow who poisoned Prince Reginald, heir to the throne of Silvershire. Aidan knows he owes Sparrow for killing his Lazlo Group partner Mitchell Lama in Rome two years ago so bringing her in for justice will prove difficult as he wants to personally kill her.

The Lazlo Group insists that restaurateur Elizabeth "Lizzy Bee" Moore is Sparrow. Though cook, chief and bottle washer and desperately in need of a bartender, she reluctantly hires Aidan. He realizes from her first blush that she is a lousy poker player and that her life is the restaurant. Aidan cannot believe Lizzie Bee is the assassin he seeks. Yet the evidence leads to Lizzy Bee. Her garden contains the right plants to make a poison and she uses a knife like no one he has ever seen before. He wonders how the person he is half way in love with could be a cold blooded assassin even as he thinks perhaps that is her way to charm the victim.

Caridad Pinero is a sure shot when it comes to keeping a reader fully engaged for several hours of pleasure (see TEMPTATION CALLS and DARKNESS CALLS) and her latest tale MORE THAN A MISSION does so too as the audience will fully enjoy this one sitting thriller. The story line reads like a cat and mouse caper with the audience wondering just who the feline is and who the rodent is as Lizzy Bee and Aidan constantly skirmish. Fans need to know if she is the assassin as Ms. Pinero keeps the audience and the hero guessing. This reviewer has not read the four previous Capturing the Crown tales by different authors (impossible as that seems), but that does not take away from a terrific romantic suspense.

Harriet Klausner