Chaos

This exciting series launch from bestseller Johansen (the Eve Duncan series) introduces Alisa Flynn, a special operative of the CIA, who was recruited at 13 when she was a street orphan in Caracas, Venezuela. Three truckloads of a military guerrilla group descend on St. Eldon’s Academy, a girls’ school in Morocco. Besides intending to hold the richest girls for ransom and selling the rest, they want to take possession of the school’s stable of thoroughbred horses, the paperwork regarding their pedigrees, and teenager Sasha Lawrence. Sasha is known as “something of a horse whisperer,” who “can coax a horse to do almost anything for her.” Unfortunately for mercenary Jorge Masenak, the leader of the intruders, she’s also Alisa’s ward. Alisa puts her career and life on the line to track down Masenak and save Sasha, with the aid of Gabe Korgan, a Nobel Prize winner, inventor, and billionaire, and Margaret Douglas, a fellow animal whisperer who’s appeared in another Johansen series. The wildly over-the-top characters and plot race toward a fittingly extravagant conclusion. Johansen’s fans will be in heaven. Agent: Andrea Cirillo, Jane Rotrosen Agency. (Sept.)