Rating: 2.75 stars
Buy Link:
Amazon | iBooks | Amazon UK
Length: Novel


He is a field mouse by name, but far from by nature, and the only one who ever gets to call Fielding Dukakis a field mouse is Special Agent Luke Kairo. And that’s only because Fielding is head over in heels in love with the man. Of course, being in love is kind of a new thing for both of them. Luke spent years being married to the job and Fielding…well, the less Luke knows about what Fielding used to do, the better. For now, Fielding is in training to become an agent with Kairo’s Westwood Agency and so far he’s pretty darn good at it. For Luke, he’s learning to embrace his love for Fielding, but he can’t help worrying about the man while he’s on a mission.

Then Fielding disappears and Luke’s well-ordered world is thrown into turmoil. Luke uses every tool at his agency’s disposal to find his lover, but in doing so, he discovers all that Fielding has been hiding from him. Keeping Fielding safe remains priority number one, but both men will have to reckon with the reality of their situation and decide if their love is strong enough to survive it.

The Agent’s Thief is technically a standalone novel, though there is a free story available from the author that describes how Fielding and Luke meet. The majority of the book switches back and forth between the present time and past scenes showing the evolution of Luke and Fielding’s relationship. The end result is chaotic, frustrating, and ultimately unsatisfying.

I felt as though I was dropped into a story already in progress and that sensation never really went away. Fielding and Luke are an established couple and, while we get these quick snapshots of how they met and romanced one another, this is mostly done through sex scenes that don’t really add much to the story. Neither of these characters is well developed or has the depth to really support the overall plot. They feel sort of like set pieces that get moved through the action, but as a reader, I just didn’t have any connection to either of them. Which is unfortunate, because had these characters been stronger, I think I would have enjoyed The Agent’s Thief a lot more.

Because of the back and forth nature of the narrative, there is a bedlam to The Agent’s Thief that’s distracting, especially when the actual story unfolding during the present time was equal parts engaging and confusing. There’s a lot of on page action, which is great and was a strong point of the book. Unfortunately, a lot the interactions between Fielding and his family seem based a presumed knowledge the reader doesn’t have. I think this goes along with my overall problem of being generally disconnected from the story and it’s characters.

The Agent’s Thief had a lot of potential, but failed to really create a cohesive narrative that drew me in. There felt like a chasm of unknown information separating me from Fielding, Luke, and their story. As a result, I was never invested in their relationship and couldn’t find the narrative thread to tie everything together. As an action romp, The Agent’s Thief is fine, but it fails to achieve much growth beyond this.