Death Echo

by Elizabeth Lowell

Emma is ex-CIA, but she got tired of the political machinations that make getting the job done, shall we say, sticky. She's now, officially, in the business of high end insurance repossession. Unofficially, she's pretty much still an operative. St. Kilda consulting has sent her on a mission to find a missing yacht. However, that "boat" is likely to be carrying some dangerous cargo. Emma works well with her partner, sniper, Mac Durand, to solve the puzzle and stop the plot against a world superpower.

Lowell started out as a romance writer, but she kept the sentiment to a minimum in this book. Although the entire novel spans just nine days in the characters lives, the story does not move at a breakneck pace. The characters are masters at their jobs, but we learn little about their lives away from this mission.