Shoot 'em Up

by Janey Mack

Overview

The mob's running guns-and her family's running wild.

Meter maid turned undercover cop Maisie McGrane managed to survive her first sting operation with just a few minor stab wounds-and some lingering emotional scars. An assassination attempt on the mayor brings the ATF and DEA to Chicago, and they're counting on Maisie's underworld connections to help them infiltrate and cripple a cartel running guns and drugs into the city. But she won't be going it alone. The DEA's hand-selected charismatic hard-case Lee Sharpe as her partner and protector. And he's taking his assignment seriously . . . in every way. But with her meddling Chicago PD family threatening to expose her true identity at any moment, Maisie will have to scramble to stay one step ahead of them, the cartel, and her new partner before her cover is shot.

Praise for Time's Up

"Mack's outstanding debut conjures equal parts Janet Evanovich and Michael Harvey... A fast and furious plot that expertly balances menace and laugh-out-loud hijinks." -Publishers Weekly, Starred Review

"Mystery buffs will not only be swept up in the ingenious and well-crafted plot but will love the irrepressible Maisie." -Library Journal, Starred Review

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781617736940
Publisher:	Kensington
Publication date:	09/27/2016
Series:	A Maisie McGrane Mystery Series , #3
Pages:	352
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.20(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Janey Mack grew up always wanting to be a cop but her dad wouldn’t let her, so she did the next best thing and created Maisie McGrane, who gets to do everything she can’t. She lives with her husband and children in Scottsdale, Arizona, within driving distance of her brothers. Please visit her at janeymack.com.

Editorial Reviews

08/15/2016
After a chaotic start to Mack’s wild third Maisie McGrane mystery (after 2015’s Choked Up), the Chicago cop goes undercover to infiltrate a Mexican drug cartel. A highlight of the operation is a comic encounter at a border crossing between Ciudad Juárez and El Paso, Tex., with a diarrheic bull. Meanwhile, Maisie’s lover, Hank Bannon, has disappeared with no word, and her new partner, bad boy Lee Sharpe, pursues her relentlessly. Lee’s behavior frequently crosses the line from sexy banter to harassment; he even gropes her in front of a DEA agent. Newcomers might be confused by Maisie’s byzantine backstory and the large cast of characters, including her rowdy family, but fans should enjoy wisecracking Maisie’s further adventures. The novel closes on a tantalizing note of moral ambiguity when Maisie admits that she genuinely likes most of the criminals she knows. Readers should be prepared for plenty of political snark (“I stuck out more than a constitutionalist at a DNC rally”). Agent: Laura Bradford, Laura Bradford Literary Agency. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

10/01/2016
Picking up minutes after the action in Choked Up ends, Mack's third Maisie McGrane adventure has the former meter maid (now deep undercover cop) getting stabbed in the thigh by boyfriend Hank Bannon, who was trying to save her from Serbian crime lord Stannislav Renko. The repercussions of this incident take Maisie deep into a criminal underworld when an assassination attempt on the Chicago mayor has the Drug Enforcement Agency and other federal organizations relying on her connections to infiltrate a cartel running drugs into the city. As always, Maisie's overly involved Irish family of cops and lawyers try to protect her from a Chicago filled with heroes, villains, charlatans, and thieves. VERDICT This lively series outing, with its wacky capers and fast-paced plotting, brings to mind works by Lee Goldberg and Janet Evanovich.

Library Journal

2016-06-30
A scrappy Chicago cop seeks her own personal justice when her brother is shot.Coming from a family of five older brothers is tough enough, but Maisie McGrane’s family is all Irish cops and lawyers in the tough streets of Chicago. Not only do they give her a hard time, but they’re also determined to keep her safe, which could be worse. One example? Maisie’s Da got her kicked out of the police academy, which should have crushed her dreams of being a cop like him. Not a girl to let something like that keep her down, Maisie talked her way into working deep undercover (she can't even tell her family) as the beard of mob boss Stannislav Renko (Choked Up, 2015). Now that Renko’s been smuggled to Serbia by Maisie’s actual boyfriend, Hank Bannon, Maisie’s on to her next assignment, as soon as she recovers from the injuries of her first. Though Maisie should be focusing on developing her latest cover, she’s distracted by the shooting of her brother, Cash. Vowing to get justice for him, she delves further into the convoluted drug scheme run by Violetta Veteratti. Is Maisie in over her head? She wishes she had Hank’s calm voice to talk her through what’s happening—readers could probably use an outside voice to clarify the narrative too—but Hank’s gone AWOL. Instead, Maisie’s got to deal with fast-talking Lee Sharpe, a colleague determined to insert himself into her latest assignment, even though his motivation is more about being near Maisie than anything else. Without more information about the book's context, the heroine’s full personality doesn’t shine; readers will have to focus more than they should on trying to piece together her back story.

Kirkus Reviews