Where to start on this book review? I’ve been wanting to review this one for ages and I even re-read it with the intention of reviewing it while it was fresh in my mind, but guess what? That was about 6 weeks ago. I got busy.

The sad thing about Kindle versions is missing out on cover art

I, Spy? centres around Sophie Green, a twenty-something Brit who works at an airport and loathes it. She starts each day with the resolution of quitting her job and finding something more stimulating but never does. The perks of her job are that it sounds impressive and there’s cute guys to perv on. One day she finds herself caught amongst a sting operation, delights in the excitement and runs headlong straight after the bad guy when he gets away and eventually gets offered an opportunity to work for a secret government department attached to airport security – while being mentored by one of the previously mentioned cute guys, who turns out to be a lot more than he seems. Adventures happen and when push comes to shove Sophie proves she’s going to be harder to take down than anyone thought.

Sophie has been likened to Stephanie Plum, which is high praise indeed, because I think Janet Evanovich really started the bumbling female mystery solver and is the standard to which all others are measured, but Sophie’s better. After almost twenty books Stephanie is still a bumbling idiot who refuses to carry a gun despite running headlong into precarious situations. Sophie’s already shot people at the end of the first book, and she continues to not flail around helplessly and wait for other people to save her in the following books (which I obviously bought), totally unlike Stephanie.

For me, one of the most entertaining parts of this book was the Britishisms. While a lot of the people who made Amazon reviews complained about Britishisms, I will celebrate them loudly. I’m an Australian after all, which I think qualifies me as half-Brit (just not enough Brit to get a goddamn dual citizenship). The other almost equally entertaining parts were the references to Buffy, Top Gear and cats, which led me to infer that Kate Johnson has excellent taste in pop culture and that she’d make a great addition to my list of imaginary drinking buddies.

It was a fun read which I enjoyed just as much upon re-reading and this is me recommending it.