Maybe the Accounting is Right, but the Plot? Fuhgeddaboudit...

Exit Strategy - Colleen Cross

Every day a list of books shows up in my email inbox from a place called BookBub. Most of these ebooks are available at fire sale prices; a couple a week are even free. I have to admit that I try to avoid any titles accompanies by a blurb bragging about the number of five-star reviews at GoodReads, but every once in a while I pick up one of the freebies just to see if the rest of the series is worth buying (or borrowing from the library).

That’s why I have a copy of Exit Strategy, subtitled “Katerina Carter Fraud Thriller Series 1”: I got it free. And I’m here to tell you, it was worth every penny…

I’ll attempt to summarize the story in simple terms – if I can… Katerina “Kat” Carter’s hired by a Canadian diamond company to perform a little forensic accounting. Seems they’re missing a corporate officer and five billion bucks (Canadian, I assume, so more like four billion US, and no pennies). Kat, smarter than the average bear, accidentally learns that for a couple of years, the company’s been reporting diamond output that doesn’t make mathematical sense (if you don’t understand, google Benford’s Law). Seems someone’s been using the company to “launder” conflict diamonds.

Yeah, right. And that nasty person is head of the “Mafia” in Argentina, not to mention a worldwide arms dealer and an importer of drugs. Right…

So Kat stumbles over a murder or three, almost gets murdered herself a couple of times, runs into an uncooperative cop, and in general acts about as stupid as Stephanie Plum. Oh, well, at least she doesn’t find herself trapped in a Vancouver landmark with a dead cell phone a la Alex Cooper…
On the whole, the first in this series written by Colleen Cross is pretty much forgettable. The protagonist – Kat – is not particularly likeable, mainly because for someone so supposedly smart she’s pretty stupid. But, then, Cross doesn’t seem to think through a lot of her plot points, either. Take, for instance, the erstwhile chief geologist of the diamond company: he has a box of kimberlite samples sitting on his porch, one of which has diamonds in it? Yeah, sure…

…and Carter’s bosom buddy Cindy is an undercover cop, yet when they two meet under “criminal circumstances” Kat thinks she’s part of a criminal gang? Or a native of Argentina can just dye her hair blonde and pass herself off as “Susan Sullivan?” without an accent? Oh, sure…

No, Cross did a lousy job with continuity and plotting. Take, for instance, the line (chapter 16), “A wooden box on a small table caught Kat’s eye. It was the same box of rocks Ken had shown her on her previous visit.”  Umm, sorry, Colleen, but during Kat’s visit with Takahashi, he didn’t show her a box of rocks (not even the one she’s dumber than…)

Sloppy plotting, lots of idiot plots, and some completely unrealistic plot twists… I’ll be generous and give it 1½ stars (and don’t even ask me about the geology, huh?)

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