The Bottom Line: This rapid-fire spy novel features an irresistible premise and brims with ample doses of romance.
A young woman wakes up at City Memorial Hospital with a broken ankle, a concussion, some abrasions on her hands and face – and no recollection of how she got there. The possessions in her hospital room reveal a flip phone and ten dollars, but no identification or credit cards. She knows only that her name might be Jamie.
Thankfully, she has left herself a well-marked trail of breadcrumbs leading to essential resources. Around her neck, she finds a locker key with the name of a local gym on it. In the locker she finds a safe, opened with her thumbprint, containing two thousand dollars and the key to a storage unit. At the storage facility, she finds a Harley-Davison and a vintage Mustang, both with keys in the ignition.
But not everything on the path to discovering her identity will come so easily. Much like Jason Bourne, she finds herself in mortal danger before she even knows who wants her dead. And fortunately, she hasn’t forgotten her military training. Despite not knowing her true identity yet, she finds she can outrun an assassin on a motorbike, hit a dime with a 380-caliber handgun from 25 yards, and – once she gets her cast off — is still fit enough to run for 20 minutes without stopping (That’s just for starters, she’ll discover additional learned skills throughout, including how to remove a bullet from a live body with nothing more than vodka and a small trauma kit). Her skills create plenty of high-tension scenes as she tries to stay alive long enough to recover all her memories and complete unfinished business.
Fans of author Kimberly A. Biggerstaff’s Rogov Romance series will be delighted to find a major character from that series as a core player in OPERATION: Running Brook (to reveal which one would be a major spoiler). As in earlier books, Jameson and Biggerstaff’s prose don’t linger for long on details or settings. The action-oriented plot moves from scene-to-scene quickly while spending ample time pondering the complications of romance while in public service. That includes time for new lovers, as Biggerstaff’s heroine is gifted at the art of seduction. Highlights are scenes in which she brims with emotion as she uncovers layers of her former life, before compartmentalizing them so she can get on with her mission.
