SOLEIL'S STAR

Set in 1990, the third installment of Bonner’s (Soleil, Too!, 2014, etc.) Cold War espionage thriller series once again features beautiful Canadian heroine Soleil Tangiere in a highly palatable fusion of spy thriller and romance.

Tangiere—now living in Switzerland with her Russian lover, Max Stepanov—decides to take a trip back to North America to make peace with her former fiance’s father, who still blames Soleil for his son’s tragic death a year earlier. But the closure Tangiere is searching for is hard to find, especially when word gets out that she’s in possession of “the world’s largest D-color flawless diamond”—information that makes her a prime target for enterprising criminals, particularly the Russian mafia and a ruthless South American crime lord with a penchant for extraordinary gems. When one of Tangiere’s good friends gets abducted and held for ransom—the diamond for her life—Tangiere is forced to make some difficult decisions. What follows is a harrowing chain of events that leads her across continents, culminating in a jaw-dropping chase scene to rival any James Bond action sequence. As in Bonner’s two previous novels featuring Tangiere, his latest is powered by breakneck pacing, nonstop action, high stakes, and, of course, the adept characterization that makes his signature character come alive. Tangiere is a decidedly unconventional lead character for a thriller; she’s essentially an Everywoman, young, relatively uneducated, with no military background and no connection to any kind of intelligence agency. She’s a backwoods beauty from Quebec who uses her intelligence, savvy, and compassionate nature to stay one step ahead of those who mean her harm. Her insightful characterization makes this novel—and series—unique, memorable, and undeniably entertaining.

Sizzling twist on a Cold War thriller.