Humor & Satire
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The Recovery Agent: A Novel (1) (A Gabriela Rose Novel)
#1 New York Times bestselling author Janet Evanovich returns with the launch of a blockbuster new series that blends wild adventure, hugely appealing characters, and pitch-perfect humor, proving once again why she's "the most popular mystery writer alive" (The New York Times).
Lost something? Gabriela Rose knows how to get it back. As a recovery agent, she's hired by individuals and companies seeking lost treasures, stolen heirlooms, or missing assets of any kind. She's reliable, cool under pressure, and well trained in weapons of all types. But Gabriela's latest job isn't for some bamboozled billionaire, it's for her own family, whose home is going to be wiped off the map if they can't come up with a lot of money fast.
Inspired by an old family legend, Gabriela sets off for the jungles of Peru in pursuit of the Ring of Solomon and the lost treasure of Lima. But this particular job comes with a huge problem attached to it-Gabriela's ex-husband, Rafer. It's Rafer who has the map that possibly points the way to the treasure, and he's not about to let Gabriela find it without him.
Rafer is as relaxed as Gabriela is driven, and he has a lifetime's experience getting under his ex-wife's skin. But when they aren't bickering about old times the two make a formidable team, and it's going to take a team to defeat the vicious drug lord who has also been searching for the fabled ring. A drug lord who doesn't mind leaving a large body count behind him to get it.
The Recovery Agent marks the start of an irresistible new series that will have you clamoring for more and cheering for the unstoppable Gabriela Rose on every page.
Lost something? Gabriela Rose knows how to get it back. As a recovery agent, she's hired by individuals and companies seeking lost treasures, stolen heirlooms, or missing assets of any kind. She's reliable, cool under pressure, and well trained in weapons of all types. But Gabriela's latest job isn't for some bamboozled billionaire, it's for her own family, whose home is going to be wiped off the map if they can't come up with a lot of money fast.
Inspired by an old family legend, Gabriela sets off for the jungles of Peru in pursuit of the Ring of Solomon and the lost treasure of Lima. But this particular job comes with a huge problem attached to it-Gabriela's ex-husband, Rafer. It's Rafer who has the map that possibly points the way to the treasure, and he's not about to let Gabriela find it without him.
Rafer is as relaxed as Gabriela is driven, and he has a lifetime's experience getting under his ex-wife's skin. But when they aren't bickering about old times the two make a formidable team, and it's going to take a team to defeat the vicious drug lord who has also been searching for the fabled ring. A drug lord who doesn't mind leaving a large body count behind him to get it.
The Recovery Agent marks the start of an irresistible new series that will have you clamoring for more and cheering for the unstoppable Gabriela Rose on every page.
Editorial Reviews
"Tense, suspenseful, funny, and wise-no one does it better than Evanovich." -Lee Child
"The thriller master, Janet Evanovich, has launched a new series. Prepare for twists, action, and one of the best books of the year." -Mystery & Suspense
"An action-packed adventure that delights much like the Indiana Jones films and the classic Romancing the Stone. It has everything, from killer snakes, military-grade assault weapons, and human sacrifice to romance and some top shelf lingerie that comes in handy for treating the wounded. A rollicking adventure and a great start to a new series." -Booklist (starred review)
"Moves at lightning speed and never stops…This new series feels distinct from Evanovich's other hits, but every bit as addictive." -Mystery Scene Magazine
"Nobody cross-pollinates funny banter and unresolved sexual tension to better effect than Evanovich, and the mystery is all action, too." -Amazon Book Review
"The thriller master, Janet Evanovich, has launched a new series. Prepare for twists, action, and one of the best books of the year." -Mystery & Suspense
"An action-packed adventure that delights much like the Indiana Jones films and the classic Romancing the Stone. It has everything, from killer snakes, military-grade assault weapons, and human sacrifice to romance and some top shelf lingerie that comes in handy for treating the wounded. A rollicking adventure and a great start to a new series." -Booklist (starred review)
"Moves at lightning speed and never stops…This new series feels distinct from Evanovich's other hits, but every bit as addictive." -Mystery Scene Magazine
"Nobody cross-pollinates funny banter and unresolved sexual tension to better effect than Evanovich, and the mystery is all action, too." -Amazon Book Review
Readers Top Reviews
HannahRegina K. de l
I received a copy of this book for review from NetGalley. Gabriela is in a quandary; her hometown has been devastated by a hurricane, and it will take millions of dollars of aid that they will not get to recover. Her family ghost has hinted that there is the key to a fabulous treasure hidden under the floorboards of her old house, but that house went to Gabriela's ex in their divorce. Determined to save her family, Gabriela is forced to accept the help from her ex, and they jump feet first into a treasure hunt. Along the way they have to deal with drug lords, half-blind pilots, snakes, explosions, and cultists that also want the treasure. Was this the best book I've ever read? No. Was this a fun read? Absolutely. This book is pretty much a surface-level read. The characters are fun, but don't have a lot of depth. I don't really buy the chemistry between Gabriela and Raker, but I can also see that improving over the course of the series. I enjoyed it enough that I will probably read the rest of the series as it is released, but this is not one of my favorites.
Susan C Holt
Gabriella Rose is tasked by her grandmother to save her hometown of Soon that's been all but destroyed by a hurricane. She has to go to the islands to the house she gave her ex husband, Rated Jones, to retrieve journals and maps to go treasure hunting so that the town can be rebuilt from the proceeds. She and Eager go head to head with an insane cult leader. In the end the madman is defeated and money is obtained and the town is saved. Love this.
Diane Saul
This is a new series for Janet. It is full of quirky characters and great dialogue. Hidden treasure, drug lords, and action from the first page. Thank you to net galley for an advanced readers copy.
V. Rock
“The Recovery Agent,” by Janet Evanovich, Atria Books, 320 pages, March 22, 2022. Gabriela Rose is a recovery agent hired to find missing assets. She deals mainly with insurance fraud. As the story opens, she is in an Ecuadorian rainforest. She was hired to find Henry Dodge, an archeologist, and retrieve an amulet. When she gets back to an area with cell phone service, she gets a call from her mother, Maeberry Rose. Her maternal grandmother, Fanny, lives with her parents in Scoon, a South Carolina coastal town that was heavily damaged in a hurricane. A developer is trying to buy the properties. Gabriela agrees to go see them. Fanny regularly gets messages from a spirit named Annie. She said Annie gave her a plan to save the town. She knows where a map is to the Ring of Solomon and the lost treasure of Cortez. But Gabriela’s ex-husband Rafer Jones owns the house where the map is supposedly hidden. They divorced a week before their second wedding anniversary. They find the map, but Rafer insists on going with Gabriela to the jungles of Peru to try to find the treasure. They hire Pepe and Caballo as their guides. Gabriela is the first to see two men following them. They work for El Dragon, a drug lord, who is also after the Ring of Solomon. This is a quick, light-hearted read. The characters are amusing. This book seems very similar to Evanovich's Stephanie Plum books and is the first in a new series. In addition to the 28 Plum novels, she has coauthored the Fox and O’Hare series, the Knight and Moon series, the Lizzy and Diesel series, the Alexandra Barnaby novels, and a graphic novel. In accordance with FTC guidelines, the advance reader's edition of this book was provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for a review.
Opal G
This book will keep you wanting to read it to the end and not put it down. The suspense keeps you on the edge. Can't wait for her next book. Great story!
Short Excerpt Teaser
Chapter One CHAPTER ONE
Gabriela Rose was standing in a small clearing that led to a rope-and-board footbridge. The narrow bridge spanned a gorge that was a hundred feet deep and almost as wide. Rapids roared over enormous boulders at the bottom of the gorge, but Gabriela couldn't see the river because it was raining buckets and visibility was limited.
She was deep in the Ecuadorian rain forest. Her long dark brown hair was hidden under an Australian safari hat, its brim protecting her brown eyes from the rain. She was a martial arts expert. She ran five miles every morning. She was a crack shot and a gourmet cook. None of these skills were keeping her dry. She was wet clear through to her La Perla panties. Her camo cargo pants and Inov-8 Bare-Grip hiking shoes were caked with mud. She was carrying a Glock .38 in a Ziploc bag tucked into a hip pocket. Other pockets held her passport, a folding Buck knife, and moisturizing lip gloss. Her daypack held a useless waterproof poncho, protein bars, her Ziploc-bagged cell phone, and assorted other necessities for jungle trekking.
She was with two local guides, Jorge and Cuckoo. She guessed they were somewhere between forty and sixty years old, and she was pretty sure that they thought she was an idiot.
"Is this bridge safe?" Gabriela asked.
"Yes, sometimes safe," Jorge said.
"And it's the only way?"
Jorge shrugged.
She looked at Cuckoo.
Cuckoo shrugged.
"You first," she said to Jorge.
Jorge did another shrug and murmured something in Spanish that Gabriela was pretty sure translated to "chickenshit woman."
Let it slide, Gabriela thought. Sometimes it gave you an advantage to be underestimated. If things turned ugly, she was almost certain she could kick his ass. And if that didn't work out, she could shoot him. Nothing fatal. Maybe take off a toe.
It had been raining when she landed in Quito two days earlier. It was still raining when she took the twenty-five-minute flight to Caco and boarded a Napo River ferry to Nuevo Rocafuerte. And it was raining when she met her guides at daybreak and settled into their motorized canoe for the six-hour trip down a narrow, winding river with no name. Just before noon, they'd pulled up at a crude campground hacked out of the jungle. They'd immediately left the river behind and followed a barely there trail through dense vegetation. And it was still raining.
"Insurance Fraud Investigator" was printed on Gabriela's business card, and she had an international reputation for excellence in the field. As an independent contractor she had the luxury of accepting jobs not related to insurance fraud, whether because they paid well or because they were fun. Her current job had checks in both boxes.
She'd been hired to find Henry Dodge and retrieve an amulet he was carrying. She didn't have a lot of information on the amulet or Dodge. Just that he couldn't leave his jobsite, and he'd requested that someone come to get the amulet. Seemed reasonable since Dodge was an archeologist doing research on a lost civilization in a previously unexplored part of the Amazon Rain Forest. The payoff for Gabriela was a big bag of money, but that wasn't what had convinced her to take the job.
She was possibly a descendant of the infamous pirate Blackbeard, and she was fascinated by seventeenth- and eighteenth-century pirates and the civilizations they touched. The opportunity to visit the site of a lost city was irresistible. It was also her thirtieth birthday. What better way to celebrate it than to have an adventure?
"How much further?" she asked Jorge.
"Not far," he said. "Just on the other side of the bridge."
Twenty minutes later, Gabriela set foot on the dig site. She'd been on other digs, and this wasn't what she'd expected. There was some partially exposed rubble that might have been a wall at one time. A couple of tables with benches under a tarp. A kitchen area that was also under a tarp. A stack of wooden crates. A trampled area that suggested it might have recently been used as a site for several tents. Only one small tent was currently left standing.
There were no people to see except for one waterlogged and slightly bloated man lying on the ground by the rubble, and a weary-looking man sitting on a camp chair. The first was clearly dead. The second stared at them as they approached.
"This is not good," Jorge said. "One of these men is very dead and something has eaten his leg."
"Panther," the man in the chair said. "Yo...
Gabriela Rose was standing in a small clearing that led to a rope-and-board footbridge. The narrow bridge spanned a gorge that was a hundred feet deep and almost as wide. Rapids roared over enormous boulders at the bottom of the gorge, but Gabriela couldn't see the river because it was raining buckets and visibility was limited.
She was deep in the Ecuadorian rain forest. Her long dark brown hair was hidden under an Australian safari hat, its brim protecting her brown eyes from the rain. She was a martial arts expert. She ran five miles every morning. She was a crack shot and a gourmet cook. None of these skills were keeping her dry. She was wet clear through to her La Perla panties. Her camo cargo pants and Inov-8 Bare-Grip hiking shoes were caked with mud. She was carrying a Glock .38 in a Ziploc bag tucked into a hip pocket. Other pockets held her passport, a folding Buck knife, and moisturizing lip gloss. Her daypack held a useless waterproof poncho, protein bars, her Ziploc-bagged cell phone, and assorted other necessities for jungle trekking.
She was with two local guides, Jorge and Cuckoo. She guessed they were somewhere between forty and sixty years old, and she was pretty sure that they thought she was an idiot.
"Is this bridge safe?" Gabriela asked.
"Yes, sometimes safe," Jorge said.
"And it's the only way?"
Jorge shrugged.
She looked at Cuckoo.
Cuckoo shrugged.
"You first," she said to Jorge.
Jorge did another shrug and murmured something in Spanish that Gabriela was pretty sure translated to "chickenshit woman."
Let it slide, Gabriela thought. Sometimes it gave you an advantage to be underestimated. If things turned ugly, she was almost certain she could kick his ass. And if that didn't work out, she could shoot him. Nothing fatal. Maybe take off a toe.
It had been raining when she landed in Quito two days earlier. It was still raining when she took the twenty-five-minute flight to Caco and boarded a Napo River ferry to Nuevo Rocafuerte. And it was raining when she met her guides at daybreak and settled into their motorized canoe for the six-hour trip down a narrow, winding river with no name. Just before noon, they'd pulled up at a crude campground hacked out of the jungle. They'd immediately left the river behind and followed a barely there trail through dense vegetation. And it was still raining.
"Insurance Fraud Investigator" was printed on Gabriela's business card, and she had an international reputation for excellence in the field. As an independent contractor she had the luxury of accepting jobs not related to insurance fraud, whether because they paid well or because they were fun. Her current job had checks in both boxes.
She'd been hired to find Henry Dodge and retrieve an amulet he was carrying. She didn't have a lot of information on the amulet or Dodge. Just that he couldn't leave his jobsite, and he'd requested that someone come to get the amulet. Seemed reasonable since Dodge was an archeologist doing research on a lost civilization in a previously unexplored part of the Amazon Rain Forest. The payoff for Gabriela was a big bag of money, but that wasn't what had convinced her to take the job.
She was possibly a descendant of the infamous pirate Blackbeard, and she was fascinated by seventeenth- and eighteenth-century pirates and the civilizations they touched. The opportunity to visit the site of a lost city was irresistible. It was also her thirtieth birthday. What better way to celebrate it than to have an adventure?
"How much further?" she asked Jorge.
"Not far," he said. "Just on the other side of the bridge."
Twenty minutes later, Gabriela set foot on the dig site. She'd been on other digs, and this wasn't what she'd expected. There was some partially exposed rubble that might have been a wall at one time. A couple of tables with benches under a tarp. A kitchen area that was also under a tarp. A stack of wooden crates. A trampled area that suggested it might have recently been used as a site for several tents. Only one small tent was currently left standing.
There were no people to see except for one waterlogged and slightly bloated man lying on the ground by the rubble, and a weary-looking man sitting on a camp chair. The first was clearly dead. The second stared at them as they approached.
"This is not good," Jorge said. "One of these men is very dead and something has eaten his leg."
"Panther," the man in the chair said. "Yo...
