The Job by Jove Belle

The Job
by Jove Belle
Pages: 264
Date: October 13 2014
Publisher: Bold Strokes Books
Series: None

Review
Rating: 3.0 out of 5.0
Read: July 25 to 26 2016

This is my second book by Jove Belle. Loved the first. This one not so much.

Let me see what I can say: there are two stories going on in this book, the story of an undercover FBI agent, and the story of two women who had had a romantic relationship a while back in college (there are actually more than two stories, like Torrence’s interactions with the bank as a manager, etc; but two main ones).

I had issues with both main story lines.

Sera Warren, the undercover FBI agent, is not exactly seen in the greatest light here, and I’m specifically referring to how unperceptive she is in terms of the people she is investigating (at one point, Sera thought something like ‘Bob is a stronger person than she had given him credit for, she had just labeled him as one of Marcus’ henchmen and hadn’t looked closer; and Marcus seems smarter and more together than I had thought’ – (a) Bob is not the actual name used; (b) hmms, underestimating Marcus is, I suppose, a risk that can occur – there is not enough information given to know if this was a gut reaction, a split second decision, or a long thought out deeply examined analysis that lead to the beliefs regarding Marcus’ abilities; not thinking of someone beyond ‘hmm – that’s a henchmen, let’s move on to other matters now’ is kind of . . . dim. And for the love of pickles, why the fuck did she keep trying to enrage Marcus? I put the deaths of at least one of the civilians on her head because of her inability to stop poking him, especially as she knew he was deranged and a hair from doing rage-y stuff

The other story line interfered with the terrorist/undercover story line in two ways – it literally interrupted the flow of the story so that a not needed and not very exciting flashback to college could occur. And, secondly, in the ‘current’ time line, that relationship kept causing Sera to do stupid shit. Like, say, in the middle of a tense hostage situation, fondle and kiss the ex-girlfriend.

In terms of plot holes, two come immediately to mind: 1) it was mentioned that the head of security was this knowledgeable ex-cop – except for certain ‘issues’, he was basically ignored while Sera tried to figure out what to do and what positives she had to use to help the situation - the biggest role he played in the tense situation was to get knocked out and, later, use his handcuffs - note, he was awake and alert when Sera was examining what resources she had available ; 2) Tor is the head of the bank. Knowledgeable. Capable. Etc. And yet, certain stupid things occurred. I’ll also put that behind spoiler tags but first – other than a somewhat stubborn need to put herself in danger, she was kind of spineless –

During the ‘situation’, no one knew Tor was there because she was up in her office. So, she hits the little emergency button and . . . proceeds to walk down the stairs so that the bad guys can ‘take her’. Um, wha? She could have tried calling someone, or . . . um, anything else beyond walking down the stairs. I do not understand what happened there. It seemed to be a situation wherein the author wanted to have this ‘moment’ and an excuse to have Sera point a gun at Tor. But whatever.

Second issue with the bank manager issue – during the tense situation, while Tor and Sera are scrambling around, they end up in a back area with a bunch of doors (4 I believe). At one point Sera turns to Tor and asks what is behind two of the locked doors. To which Tor responds something like ‘I do not know, I rarely come back here; I think they are storage rooms.’ Um . . . did I misunderstand what Tor’s job is? The concept confuses me that the bank manager has areas of their ‘control’ that they have no clue what is in that area.

Ah, third plot issue – a) bank vault just sits there open for anyone to enter and take money from; b) hallway with storage rooms, HVAC, and other building maintenance type rooms are in a super secular area that requires special keys to enter – the kind wherein only three people have keys. I . . . what? The bank vault is just open to all, but some area that Tor doesn’t’ even have a clue what’s in there, but isn’t anything valuable or precious or whatever the fuck, is behind super secure . . .um security?

So. The romance annoyed me. There were bits of the terrorist plot that annoyed me. And there were bits of the undercover (as in the character of that undercover agent) that annoyed me. And yet I gave/give a rating of 3 stars. I might be mental.

July 26 2016