Reviewed by Sadonna
TITLE: How to Shield an Assassin
SERIES: Unholy Trifecta #1
AUTHOR: AJ Sherwood
NARRATORS: Iggy Toma & Antonio Amato
LENGTH: 9 hours and 21 minutes
PUBLISHER: Podium Audio
RELEASE DATE: July 19, 2022
BLURB:
It’s not stealing if you’re stealing it back…
Ari had a game plan for life: shoot people. Get money. Hang out with fellow criminal friends. He saw absolutely no reason to change that plan until one dark night in Memphis, when a little girl reached out to him with pocket change and a desperate plea for him to help her.
Adopting an abused little girl off the streets was, needless to say, not part of the plan. Ari had no idea what he was doing with an eight year old. He especially didn’t know how to juggle taking contracts and raising a little girl.
Things get more complicated when the mercenary, Carter Harrison, approaches him with a job. He needs Ari’s expertise to get into the very high-security museum, Knowles, and steal back Monet’s Water Lily Pond. The job isn’t an easy one. He’d need more than the two of them to make it happen. It’s further complicated because Ari’s not sure what to do with his new daughter while working this job.
And for that matter, how’s he supposed to handle the sexy mercenary?
REVIEW:
Ari is a hitman. One night on a job, he’s approached by a little girl who wants to hire him to take care of her stepfather who is abusing her. He’s furious and then the stepfather goes a bridge too far. Having grown up in the system himself with his twin brother, he’s not keen to leave her. So he decides to take her with him. Odd choice for a hired assassin, but hey, he can’t be any worse than the stepfather can he? Or the mother who abandoned her? He’ll make sure she goes to school and is clothed and fed and is safe.
He’s laying low in a new town with the newly christened Remi whose hero is Black Widow (she’s slightly obsessed with the character). She’s smart and doing well in school – until she’s harassed by a classmate 🙂 Ari makes sure she can handle herself and so she does. She’s just not quite clear on the proper response levels yet. When a mercenary named Carter finds Ari and Remi, things get a little harried. Ari didn’t want ANYONE to know about Remi and in fact it had taken him some time to let his best friends, a thief named Ivan and a hacker named Kyou, even know about her.
The job is a big one. A complicated one. One that will require all the skill of Ari and his friends and Carter. This is also really complicated by the attraction between Ari and Carter. Neither has been successful in the romance department given their jobs and Ari has pretty much given up. But Carter is intriguing and seems to really also be taken with Remi – even though he realizes things are a little off with her and gets to the truth about Remi and Ari pretty quickly 🙂
Needless to say the caper is a lark and the guys find themselves in over their heads at times. It’s a brazen job, but the payoff is tremendous. Remi wants to do her part and Ari and Carter try to keep the heat level just under the level of complete distraction since everybody’s lives could be at stake if this doesn’t go well 😀 It’s quite a ride to the finish.
LOL! This is like Ocean’s 11 meets Hitman’s Guide. What fun! I loved Remi and Ari together. His foray into single fatherhood is quite a ride. I loved his heart and his cluelessness and his real for a kid who is in a bad place. His friends are a hoot and also are quickly wrapped around the precocious Remi’s little finger 🙂 Ari’s got a hair trigger and he has a real adjustment to let anyone in his space – even the very attractive Carter. Remi is a bit of a matchmaker and her reasoning is heartbreakingly perceptive. Is it over the top at times? Heck yes! Is Remi a fairly idealized child with an incredible intellect? Sure. But that’s what makes it fun. That and her favorite uncles trying to teach her all the tricks of the trade – hacking, observation, etc. Ari for his part finds it hard to accept that anybody would really want to deal with him, his issues and Remi. Carter is kind of amazed by the whole group. They just kind of gel and it’s great fun to watch the planning an execution. I cannot wait for the next book frankly.
Iggy Toma is one of my favorite narrators and I’m glad I chose to do the audio. Antonio Amato is new to me, but I enjoyed his performance as well. They both did a find job conveying the sort of manic movie like lark of this job and the men doing it. I loved in particularly Iggy’s performance of Remi. He captured an 8 year old girl as well as any narrator I’ve heard. So much fun! I can’t wait until the next audio is in my hands (and ears).
RATING: 
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