Saturday 13 February 2016

Book ~ "No One Lives Twice" (2010) Julie Moffett

From Goodreads ~ I'm Lexi Carmichael, geek extraordinaire. I spend my days stopping computer hackers at the National Security Agency. My nights? Those I spend avoiding my mother and eating cereal for dinner. Even though I work for a top-secret agency, I've never been in an exciting car chase, sipped a stirred (not shaken) martini or shot a poison dart from an umbrella. 

Until today, that is, when two gun-toting thugs popped up in my life and my best friend disappeared. So, I've enlisted the help of the Zimmerman twins - the reclusive architects of America's most sensitive electronic networks - to help me navigate a bewildering maze of leads to find her. Along the way, my path collides with a sexy government agent and a rich, handsome lawyer, both of whom seem to have the hots for me. Hacking, espionage, sexy spy-men - it's a geek girl's dream come true. If it weren't for those gun-toting thugs.

Lexi is a computer geek who works for the National Security Agency (NSA) tracking and trying to stop computer hackers.  One night on her way to dinner at her parents', she is accosted by a thug with a gun demanding a package Basia, her best friend, had supposedly given her.  What package?  When she gets home that night, there is another thug in her apartment demanding the same package.  She discovers the package was delivered to her neighbour,  Inside the package is what looks like a basic contract so Lexi is confused as to what the big deal is.

Lexi enlists the help of computer geeks, the Zimmerman twins (Elvis and Xavier).  They eventually figure out that the contract isn't just a basic contract and Lexi tries to find and save her best friend who is in danger.  The Zimmerman twins ask an even smarter but mysterious computer geek named Slash for help and he becomes protective of Lexi.  Lexi is approached by a lawyer named Finn who also wants to find Basia because he said he had asked her to translate the contract and now she's disappeared.

This is the first book I've read by this author and I liked it.  I liked the writing style and found it amusing at times.  I thought the main plot was interesting but wasn't crazy about the terrorist angle.  It is written in first person perspective from Lexi's point of view.

I liked Lexi.  She is a 25-year-old socially-awkward computer geek whose mother is always trying to set her up with prospective husbands.  This why she doesn't have a cell phone ... she doesn't want her mother to be able to reach her all the time.  I found this to be unbelievable considering Lexi is 25, works with technology and everyone in that age range (even in 2010 when the book was written) has a cell phone.  When she is given one, she has no idea and has to ask someone how to use it.  There were lots of lively supporting characters and I was able to keep them all straight except for two ... because their names both started with "Al-", I had to keep pausing to remember which was the rich prince and which was the terrorist.

This is the first in the Lexi Carmichael series (there are currently seven in the series).  I like getting into series and enjoyed this one enough to want to check out the next one.

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