Note: Thank you to NetGalley, Atria Books, and author Janet Evanovich for the advanced reader copy of this book. This review will also be posted on NetGalley. What follows is my unbiased review of the book.

The name Janet Evanovich is familiar to most people for the Stephanie Plum series of books. I think most authors do better when they branch out a bit, and she has started another series centered around Gabriela Rose, who is a recovery agent. This means she looks for very valuable items that were stolen and returns them to the owners or to the insurance company, depending on who contracted her.

The King’s Ransom is the second book in this series. I didn’t read the first one, but I don’t think I really needed to. The book is very accessible to anyone who has never read any of the Janet Evanovich books.

Gabriela is approached by her ex-husband, Rafer, and his cousin, Harley, to help them out. Harley somehow stumbled into a job where he insured a number of historic valuables, including the Rosetta Stone. It sounded like easy money, but it has been stolen. Not only that, but all of the items that Harley insured since taking on the bank president job have disappeared. The law suspects Harley was involved, since he wrote the policies on them. Gabriella knows he’s not smart enough nor ambitious enough to mastermind something of this caliber.

In London, her reputation precedes her, and she meets with people at the British Museum who are trying to keep the theft quiet. She also encounters Ahmed El Ghaly, who ostensibly works for the Egyptian Embassy. He’s hot on the trail of one of the stolen artifacts as well, and plans to follow Gabriela. The only problem is that Gabriela is as smart as he is and thwarts most of his plans to follow her.

The King’s Ransom is a great summer read. It’s a light mystery that has some serious peril, but is also humorous. The humor isn’t the over-the-top insanity of the Stephanie Plum books. It’s mostly sarcastic jabs between the main characters, particularly Gabriela and Rafer. I smiled more than once at the banter between them. There’s some violence as well, but it’s still a fairly light book.

I enjoyed following them from New York to London to Egypt and then Italy. It was a very fun adventure following them. I wasn’t sure at first if I was going to really enjoy it. I liked the relationship between the characters. I could see why Gabriela and Rafer were married at one time, and could also see how she could get fed up with him. There’s an attraction there, but I think there’s also one building with Ahmed. It will be interesting to see if he appears in any more stories in this series.

With The King’s Ransom, Janet Evanovich is showing that she’s more than a one-trick pony. She’s developing new characters that are interesting in a story that is a bit of thrilling escapism. The pace is fast as the story jets around the world, and we see how Gabriela cultivates relationships. The characters are fun and find themselves in interesting situations. I thoroughly enjoyed it.