Finlay Donovan Rolls the Dice

October 1, 2023

Finlay Donovan is heading to Atlantic City with nanny and sister crimefighter Vero for a relaxing weekend, but that's just a cover. Actually, they're hoping to make a deal with a slick loan shark, find a stolen car, and rescue Vero's childhood crush, Javi, from a nasty kidnapper. Predictably, nothing goes as planned. With a 150,000-copy first printing. Prepub Alert.

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Starred review from December 1, 2023
Finlay and her live-in nanny, Vero, are off to Atlantic City. Not for the girls' weekend they desperately need, but to rescue Vero's childhood love, Javi, and steal back their Aston Martin, both taken by someone from Vero's past. Finlay is overwhelmed enough when her ex-husband, Steven, and her mother insist on tagging along, but when hot cop Nick shows up with Finlay's detective sister, Georgia, and the FBI, the entire mission becomes ridiculously more complicated. That's not including Finlay's agent calling incessantly and the surprise of two dead bodies in a hotel bathroom. The usual amount of chaos ensues, including but not limited to an explosion, a man in chaps, a weiner dog named Kevin Bacon, and a $14 million flash drive. Finlay will need her trademark suspense-author intuition to solve another crime while staying under the radar. Cosimano's fourth Finlay Donovan novel (Finlay Donovan Jumps the Gun, 2022) is brilliantly plotted, bringing the witty humor and thrilling, nail-biting action the series is known for while also tackling emotional family dynamics. Cosimano knocks this one out of the park. Highly recommended for all fans of the series.

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January 1, 2024
Another rollicking round of high-speed felonies for mystery author Finlay Donovan and those unwary enough to get pulled into her orbit. The opening challenge is terse and to the point. "You have seventy-two hours to pay back what you owe," reads a note stuck under the windshield wiper of a van abandoned by Finn's friend Javi. But nothing ever follows a straight line in Finn's life. Since Javi owes $200,000 to loan shark Marco Toscano, Finn and Vero Ramirez, her resourceful nanny, read the note as a ransom demand and set out to find Javi and somehow raise the funds to repay Toscano. Their journey takes them--together with Finn's two children, her mother, and Steven, her ex-husband (don't ask)--from Virginia to Atlantic City on a trip that carefully avoids Maryland, where there's a warrant out against Vero. They don't find Javi, but the trip isn't a total loss: They stumble upon two dead bodies in a hotel room, one of them Marco's. Even though that discovery renders Javi's debt moot, news of a flash drive containing information about how to access $14 million in cryptocurrency brings Finn up against two of her old antagonists, Russian mobster Feliks Zhirov, who's escaped from prison just in time to join the festivities, and Ekatarina Rybakov, his star attorney, who in some ways is even more dangerous than him. As usual, Finn compensates for her limitations as a sleuth by her unexcelled ability to improvise, turning the most dangerous situations into set-up lines for droll payoffs. Perfect escapist fare for stay-at-home readers who wonder why nothing ever happens to them.

COPYRIGHT(2024) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

January 22, 2024
The enjoyable fourth entry in Cosimano’s Finlay Donovan series (after Finlay Donovan Jumps the Gun) picks up right where the previous installment left off, with the suspense novelist turned sleuth and her nanny, Vero, pausing to collect Finlay’s two young children from her ex-husband, Steven, before they head from Virginia to Atlantic City to rescue Javi, Vero’s childhood love, from loan shark Marco. During that pause, Finlay and Vero accidentally amass multiple unwanted traveling companions, including Steven,who’s angling for a reconciliation, and Finlay’s mother, Susan. To make matters worse, Marco refuses to cooperate with Finlay and Vero once they arrive in Atlantic City, and shortly after their first meeting with the loan shark, the women find him dead in a luxury casino suite. Then the police—including Finlay’s new boyfriend, Nick, and her sister, Georgia—arrive to look into Marco’s death and the disappearance of his nephew, Ike, setting off a fine farce involving interfering mothers, lost hoodies, disappearing kidnapping victims, romantic jealousy, and dirty diapers. Cosimano nails the tone—breezy but not too fluffy—and maintains a breakneck pace throughout. Readers who prefer their mysteries to lean madcap will eat this up.