Bottom Line: If you like Stephanie Plum books, you’ll love Finlay Donovan.

Finlay Donovan Crosses the Line is the sixth book in Elle Cosimano’s series centered around author turned inadvertant hit man for hire, Finlay Donovan. For now, she seems to have the Russian mob off her back and life is settling down, with one exception. Her friend, and nanny to her children, Veronica “Vero” Ruiz was arrested and extradited to Maryland for stealing money from her sorority house in college. Finlay knew about Vero being wanted, but had also been assured that Vero didn’t do it. She wants to go to Maryland and see for herself what’s happening and see if she can help Vero, but she has no one to leave her children with. Finlay’s boyfriend, Nick, volunteers his services. Finlay hesitates, then accepts his offer and heads out to get Vero out of trouble and back in their lives.

When she arrives at Vero’s family home in Maryland, she finds Vero out on bail but with an ankle monitor on. The whole story of what happened to Vero that’s been in the background for the five previous books comes to light. Her sorority was running illegal poker games and made a pile of money. Vero had the cash in her closet when one of the students, who lost his entire tuition gambling, complained. The administration came down on the sorority, but the cash had disappeared, and so did Vero, knowing that she would be blamed for it.

Finlay is here to help solve the crime of who really stole the money. Along the way they have many misadventures. After a close call, Finlay gets Cam, the hacker she’s been mothering for a few stories now, to help them spoof Vero’s ankle monitor. Unfortunately, it doesn’t always go exactly as planned. Vero’s cousin, Ramon, and her boyfriend, Javi, also appear quite a bit in the book. Finlay Donovan Crosses the Line also introduces Vero’s mother and aunt, who are also trying to clear Vero’s name their own way.

Then there are the phone calls to check on the kids. Finlay and Nick have agreed to ask each other “Is there anything I have to know?” and not answer if either of them wants to keep the other int he dark. In the case of Finlay’s two children, this is how Nick answers her inquiries into how they are doing. Since Nick is a police officer who works with Finlay’s sister, this is also how she doesn’t tell him all of the ways she’s been breaking the law.

I love this series of books. Six books into it and the craziness still feels pretty fresh. Finlay and Vero find new ways to get in trouble, and also make decisions that are questionable. The result is a zany book that reads almost like an episode of I Love Luch with modern technology involved. I found the story to be very entertaining, and this was despite the fact that I accurately pegged what happened to the money early on. The misadv entures of Finlay and Vero never fail to bring a smile to my face. The book is well-paced, giving a few pages to catch my breath in between some of their crazier ideas.

The audiobook is narrated by Angela Dawe who does a terrific job. This is the first audiobook I’ve listened to in the series and I enjoyed it as much as I did reading the pages. Dawe doesn’t get too crazy with the voices, but she gives the characters just a little bit of distinction so I could tell who was talking or what perspective was being given very easily.

There were actually a lot of things going on in Finlay Donovan Crosses the Line that had nothing to do with each other, but seemed to be connected initially, which muddies the investigation. Everything seems to work out in the end, except Finlay bought a pregnancy test and didn’t use them until the end of the book. Stay tuned for the next one in the series. It promises to change everything.

Note: Thank you to NetGalley, St. Martin’s Press, and author Elle Cosimano for the advance reader copy of this book. This review will also be posted on NetGalley. What follows is my unbiased review of the book.

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