All the characters we have come to love (or hate) are back for this third installment of the Joe the Bouncer series, but this story definitely falls short of its predecessors. In a series that stretches plausibility at every turn, the opening scenes in Afghanistan are even too unbelievable for my ability to suspend disbelief. Once the action moves back to New York, things are on a bit firmer footing, but even here, Gordon's plotting is sloppy. There are too many botched attempts to kill people, for instance, and meanwhile Joe the Bouncer, who is the most dangerous person of all, goes home most nights to his grandmother's home in Queens where apparently none of the bad guys bother him at all. Meanwhile, the attraction between Joe and Donna Zamora, the conflicted FBI agent who is on his tail but also his ally in fighting terrorists, seems quite forced. On the other hand, Joe and his Russian ally, Yelena, seem a perfect match, whether they are in bed or assaulting a group of Russian mob bosses at a bath house. Lots of things here are forced in fact; Gordon has a bad habit of writing two or three sentences too many when he is getting inside his characters' heads--which he does a lot.

As I indicated at the beginning of the review, the characters are great. And the fact that each book takes up where the last leaves off (no cliffhangers, just a bad guy or two left at large) means that we get to follow the story of folks like mob boss Gio Caprese and his relationship with his wife, who...well, you need to read (or listen to) books one and two to understand that story. Joe's other allies are great as well, from computer hacker Juno, to the Irish Sean or Israeli Josh, Chinese car expert Cash, and so on. The cast is diverse, and the plot concerns an evil American corporation, modeled after Blackwater, that is not only bringing heroin to the United States, but some of whose leaders have even more nefarious plots going on. The set pieces in the book are great, especially anything involving Joe and Yelena, but overall this gives the appearance of having been written far too quickly, with far too little thought. ( )