Review of Her Consigliere by Carsen Taite
Carsen Taite is one of my go-to lesfic authors. I especially like it when she writes legal thrillers enriched by her experience as a retired criminal attorney. Even though Her Consigliere features an attorney main character, the book focuses more on the criminal aspects of the Italian mafia in Texas.
Attorney Siobhan Collins was brought up within the Mancuso family and now is the counselor to Don Mancuso, the mafia Padrino who leads criminal operations in Dallas. Royal Scott is an undercover FBI agent tired of her job when she is forced to infiltrate the Mancuso family to try to bring them down. But when both women feel a mutual attraction, things get complicated and dangerous.
This novel started at a fast pace and kept the intrigue aspects of it for most of the story. I liked the way that Ms. Taite describes the work of an undercover agent and the intricacies of the mafia criminal network. Both main characters are well portrayed and they have good chemistry together though their relationship felt a bit rushed at times.
My main issue is that I wasn’t convinced about the plot resolution, especially in the last few chapters. It felt a bit rushed, many things were wrapped up in a short time which contradicted the slower build-up of the story. I thought that parts of the cast acted out of character, especially considering that irreversible life-changing decisions were taken with little reflection. It might be just me so take this with a pinch of salt, but I felt that many important things happened in a very short part of the book.
Fans of Ali Vali’s Cain Casey series will be delighted that some of the characters from those books make a short cameo appearance in this book. According to the acknowledgments, Ms. Vali, who is friends with the author, gave her advice on the criminal behaviour of the mafia that she had researched for her own books. Having read Vali’s The Devil Inside, it was good to see Cain and Emma in action again.
Overall, this was an entertaining read but with some plot resolution issues. Not the best book by Carsen Taite for me but if you are into crime novels you might want to give it a try. 3.5 stars.
