MR. NICE SPY

Andee Paxton is used to things blowing up…literally. She’s a fireworks designer, and while there aren’t many sparks in her love life, her career is literallly on fire. For 26 years, Andee has been under the impression that her father is Oscar-winning actor Keith Huxley-Beck, a fact she regrettably shared with her coworkers, who enjoy teasing her about it. Though Andee has never met Keith, her single mother swears he’s the one. Andee even studied American Sign Language for him, since he’d learned it once for a movie role. But then Andee decides to take a DNA test to prove her claim, and the results are nothing if not explosive. The same day Andee learns she’s not descendant of Hollywood royalty, she comes face to face with a handsome CIA operative named Adam Chan who happens to know the identity of her real father—and it turns out to be a man known as Holt, one of the most wanted and dangerous drug lords in the world. As fate would have it, he’s been searching for her, too. Just as suddenly as Chan fills Andee in about her father’s evil deeds, Holt arrives and kidnaps them both. Locked in Holt’s secret hideout within the French catacombs, Andee and Chan devise a quick plan to parade as a couple, which offers them some privacy under the guise of romantic rendezvous. They also have a secret advantage: Chan is hard of hearing, and since Andee is fluent in ASL, they can communicate virtually undetected. Can Andee stop her father’s nefarious plans and score the hot CIA agent, or will her plan crash and burn? In Smith’s second My Spy novel, it’s Chan’s turn to play the hero, and Andee is another savvy-smart heroine. While Holt and his henchmen are caricature villains, all guns and bravado, Chan is devilishly charismatic and capable, and his hearing loss works seamlessly as a critical part of the story.