Review: A smart, well paced thrill ride, with Vanessa Michael Munore at her most vulnerable
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 07 15, 2014
The Catch, by Taylor Stevens, is a riveting tale of piracy off the Somali coast of Africa.  The heroine, Vanessa Michael Munroe, needs some down time after the harrowing adventures that took place in the last book, so she returns to Africa, and in the Michael persona, takes a thankless job as a problem solver in Djibouti.  Her circumstances soon change, and she finds herself as an unwanted outsider, helping to guard a cargo ship off the coast of Somalia.  Pirates attack the ship, and the story roars off from there.THE CATCH, told entirely from Michael’s perspective, is a brilliantly written page-turner that shines an insider’s light into modern day Somalia and Djibouti.  The story line is complex, and Michael’s motivations are nuanced, but both added greatly to the depth of the storyline.Michael is completely on her own, with extremely limited resources in this book.  Seeing how she gathers and sifts through information, while dealing with an ever more difficult set of circumstances was fascinating to this reader.Taylor Stevens' consistently delivers smart, fast-paced adventures that take readers deep into exotic locations.  We're able to learn about different cultures while being carried along on a high-stakes thrill ride.  THE CATCH is my favorite book of 2014 and I highly recommend it to those who enjoy smart, well-written thrillers.