Short & Sweet Review: No Easy Target by Iris Johansen (audio)

Title: No Easy Target

Author: Iris Johansen

Narrator: Elisabeth Rodgers

Published: April 2017, Recorded Books

Length: 13 hours 8 minutes

Source: Personal copy via Audible

Summary: 

New York Times bestselling author Iris Johansen returns with another thriller, No Easy Target

Margaret
Douglas has worked hard to put her painful past behind her. Raised off
the grid in an abusive home, her only escape was the nearby forest where
she sought refuge whenever she could. There, in the peaceful woods, she
discovered a strange gift: the ability to understand animals and to
communicate with them. And so those creatures became her only friends,
her only joy during a desolate childhood. Now Margaret wants nothing
more than to live a quiet life, close to the animals and under the
radar. But her abilities have not gone unnoticed and there are those who
would use them for their own purposes. Determined not to be a pawn in
anyone’s game, every time someone gets too close, Margaret uproots her
life and outruns them.

When John Lassiter breaks into Margaret’s
apartment, she vanishes again, but Lassiter has good reason to be
persistent. As a CIA operative, he owes his life to his men , one of
whom is being held captive by an unrelenting enemy—an enemy who has set
his sights on Margaret. Which means that Lassiter must control her to
use her as bait.

With danger in hot pursuit, Margaret finds
herself matching wits with a man who refuses to stop or be stopped.
Turning from the hunted to the hunter, Margaret must use everything she
has ever learned to not only survive, but to defeat a great evil. And to
prove once and for all that she’s no easy target.

***Short & Sweet Reviews are
short, quick reviews. These will mainly be used for series books where I
have already done full reviews on some of the earlier books or for
books that I feel will suffice with a quick review. These will not be
used for review requests or blog tours.

My thoughts: I’ve been a fan of Iris Johansen’s books for quite some time now, falling in love with her Eve Duncan series. Since then, she has started creating new series for some of the secondary charaters that she has developed for that original series and I love seeing these lesser characters being developed more fully. This book in particular is the result of that…and while it is not as of yet part of a series…one never knows if it will be. 

Margaret Douglas is quite a unique character in that she can communicate with animals – like an animal whisperer extraordinaire. A bit hokey, I know, but if you’ve read any of the other books where she part of the story, it’s actually kind of neat. I was intrigued to learn more about her and I wasn’t disappointed. She’s being hunted because of her talents – but not for good use, of course. 

This book was jam-packed with action and danger and really kept me on my toes from start to finish. The characters are all well-drawn, both the good guys and the bad guys. I would so love to see this book be the start of a series for Margaret, but if not, I do hope we see in again in some of the future Eve Duncan books. She really is a great character!



Audio thoughts: I love listening to Elisabeth Rodgers narrate books, especially the Iris Johansen books…she just gets them. She’s pretty consistent with the voices and does well with the action/tension in the different scenes. I’ve listened to quite a lot of Iris Johansen books so far and Elisabeth Rodgers has narrated just about every one of them and I have enjoyed every single one of them.

My only complaint with this audio book is more of a production complaint – the recording itself was recorded at too low a volume so even when I had the volume on my phone (what I typically listen to my audio books on) at it’s highest level,  I still had trouble hearing the book. I had no issues when listening in the car, which is what I ended doing – saving the audio and only listening when I was in the car – but just using my phone was not an option this time around and I’ve never had that problem before.