Undetected by Anna Hackett Series: Treasure Hunter Security #8
Published by Anna Hackett on September 4th 2018
Pages: 127
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Darcy Ward has sold her soul to the devil. Okay, not quite the devil, but she did agree to work with Agent Arrogant and Annoying—aka Special Agent Alastair Burke of the FBI’s Art Crime Team to lay a trap for infamous black-market antiquities ring, Silk Road. Darcy loves shoes, computers, caffeine, and working at her family business, Treasure Hunter Security.
The only thing missing is her dream of a once-in-a-lifetime love, like her parents share, and a man who’ll put her first. She’s not so crazy about Silk Road trying to kill her family and friends, nor is she fond of an order-giving FBI agent and his distracting cologne. Using a trio of cursed diamonds as bait, she’s working hard to set a trap for Silk Road in the Dashwood Museum, but as the black-market thieves escalate their attempts to stop Darcy, she finds herself swept into Alastair’s strong, protective arms.
Alastair Burke is driven by vengeance. He’s dedicated his life to taking down Silk Road and its mysterious leader, the Collector, and now he finally has his chance. He can’t allow anything to distract him—especially not a sassy, smart woman who tests every bit of his control. But as the opening gala of the cursed diamonds exhibit approaches, the thieves target him and Darcy with a series of deadly attacks…and Alastair realizes he’ll do anything to keep her safe.
With the FBI and the former SEALs of Treasure Hunter Security at their backs, Darcy and Alastair are caught up in a dangerous game of cat and mouse, and their fierce attraction. But with lives on the line, Alastair will find himself caught between his desire for revenge and keeping the woman he’s falling for alive.
The simmering tension between Special Agent Arrogant and Annoying (Alastair Burke) and Darcy Ward stretching over the the whole Treasure Hunter Security series, left as the last novella, finally, finally comes to fruition in ‘Undetected’, where it all gets wrapped up in a mere hundred-ish pages. The bad guys go down, in a spectacular, Bruce-Willis-action-movie kind of way (this isn’t to say suspension of disbelief isn’t clearly needed in some scenes), and Darcy and Burke still manage get the hots on after getting bloodied and bruised in the process.
Although definitely not a standalone, ‘Undetected’ works well because of the build-up over the last few books, with the overarching narrative and characters already in place to launch this last instalment off from the get-go. In essence, the story’s loads of fun and full of non-stop action and as anxious as I was to see how Darcy/Burke’s story would play out, I was pretty chuffed with how things went down with them—the push-pull from the both of them coming across as foreplay, the explosive sexy times—though I was pretty outraged at the somewhat rushed ending, but only because I wanted more of them.
