Review: Doesn't live up to the hype
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 04 2, 2013
This box set contains two novels (Fifth AvenueandRunning of the Bulls (The Fifth Avenue Series)) and a novella (From Manhattan with Love: A Short Novel (The Fifth Avenue Series)).  While the books have different main characters, they all involve the adventures and misdeeds of New York's super-rich, as well as the assassins that work for them and plague them.The books all feature sex, violence, and frequent plot twists.  There is nothing wrong with any of those things, but I began to suffer assassin-fatigue before I even finished the first book.  Having an assassin show up and kill people is about the only way Smith advances the plot in these books.  In his world, all the characters know how to contact super-assassins and they do so . . . all the time.  Like, all the time.Whenever the action began to slow down a little, I began to predict that an assassin would show up (or the assassin's close cousin, a mafioso).  There is a core lack of plausibility at the heart of these books that kept me from fully enjoying them.