Sixty-five-year-old Nancy Norman, who recently ended a career as a home nurse, loves James Bond movies and spy novels, her cat (Dr. GoldenPaw), and the act of bedazzling nearly every surface of her Minneapolis home. She\u2019s a woman with big dreams but little means to make them a reality, beyond a casual flirtation with a handsome stranger on a dating app for senior citizens, and she lacks a clear sense of purpose. So when she\u2019s offered an overpaid position as a substitute night nurse for technology mogul and environmental activist Gnut Berdqvist, she takes it. After intruders break into Gnut\u2019s mansion, however, Nancy uncovers a labyrinth of corporate intrigue, fraud, and violence\u2014and on top of everything, her cat goes missing. Dahlman\u2019s novel makes a solid effort to pay homage to classic espionage thrillers, and the fact that the protagonist is a senior citizen is relatively uncommon in the genre and sets the stage for a truly engaging story. However, various attempts at humor throughout the book often come off as silly. Characters generally feel underdeveloped and frequently use catchphrase-laden language, such as a retired football star turned hacker who often uses football metaphors: \u201cHell yeah. Touchdown. Accessed the power grid.\u201d Others fall into stereotypical patterns: The villains are oafish, Gnut is a self-absorbed pseudo-environmentalist, and Sinclair, who becomes Nancy\u2019s love interest, is a narcissistic Englishman who wears a tuxedo to a jewel heist. The plot frequently drags through unimportant details, particularly toward the end, as a battle or a tense scene takes place in nearly every room in Gnut\u2019s expansive mansion. Finally, frequent references to Target department stores and its brands make the book feel like an advertisement at times, rather than an intriguing spy tale.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sixty-five-year-old Nancy Norman, who recently ended a career as a home nurse, loves James Bond movies and spy novels, her cat (Dr. GoldenPaw), and the act of bedazzling nearly every surface of her Minneapolis home. She\u2019s a woman with big dreams but little means to make them a reality, beyond a casual flirtation with a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":6113,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6112","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interesting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6112"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6112"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6112\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6113"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6112"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6112"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6112"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}