Reviewed by Dee
TITLE: Incognito
AUTHOR: Nanisi Barrett D’Arnuk
PUBLISHER: JMS Books LLC
LENGTH: 204 pages
RELEASE DATE: April 17, 2016
BLURB:
DEA Operative Cameron Andrews can finally use her Master’s Degree in International Affairs when she’s assigned to help Ambassador John Taylor in Argentina negotiate a trade treaty. But it’s a front for her real objective: extricate the ambassador’s eighteen-year-old son, Tad, from the trouble he is in with the Salavados Cartel and then work with the Argentine authorities to trap the Cartel in a sting.
Since her boss gave her the authority to use any means at her disposal, Cam falls back into a cover she’s used before: the very wealthy and independent Canadian, Laura Stuard.
By playing the headstrong Laura to the hilt, Cameron is invited to the Salavados compound where they make a business proposal to her: use her SeaFarer Cruise Liners to move the drugs to Canada.
It is a dangerous and exhausting game Cameron and Tad are playing, because not all the Salavados brothers are convinced by “Laura Stuard.” Cameron will have to stretch her considerable skills to not get killed during this scheme
REVIEW:
As per the blurb, DEA Cameron takes on the persona of Laura Stuard in order to penetrate a drug ring. Ambassador Taylor’s son, Tad, has been getting his supply from a Cartel, so he becomes her ally and way to get her foot in the door. Something that didn’t prove too difficult. I personally found such a large dealer to be rather trusting, but hey a pretty face can do strange things to a man.
The fact this story is listed as a ‘lesbian mystery romance’ is a little lost on me. Yes, the main character is a lesbian, but for the majority of the story she is working undercover, masquerading as being in a relationship with an eighteen-year old boy. Given she is forty-years old it causes a lot of scandal, and of course requires them to pretend they are sleeping together. Thankfully there’s no actual sex between the two, just plenty of faking it.
The majority of the story follows the elaborate hoax to take the bad guys down. A cruise is set-up to get them in a confined and so-called controlled environment, with other undercover agents aboard. This sees the climax of the story, and we get introduced to Cam’s love interest. Why on earth she’d be on a cruise when a sting was about to go down I have no clue. But I digress.
The story certainly is a mystery, romance? I must’ve missed that part. The plot had great potential, however the overall lack of any feeling, urgency, fear, love, hate, anything, made it fall short for me. Almost every line ended or started with someone nodding or smiling, and at times a combination of both ‘he smiled and nodded’. There was a classic opportunity for some tension to be bought into the story when a gun was pulled on Cam, and she frowned in confusion! The woman has a gun on her and she frowns?
I found this story to be somewhat average. The plot certainly was interesting, but the lack of any emotion made me feel distanced as a reader and I never came to care about any of the characters, which is a must for me to love a story. I’m sure many others will get more out of it than I did, so take a chance and grab a copy.
RATING: 
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