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Henrietta Martinez #2
The Courier
Cutting-edge international thriller follow-up to The Insider, set in the world of hackers, techno-thieves and inside traders, for fans of John Grisham Approached to crack a safe by the owner's suspicious wife, reformed hacker Henrietta 'Harry' Martinez can't resist the challenge. Now her client's absconded with a fortune in diamonds, leaving Harry sole witness to a brutal murder. And next in line for a ruthless assassin who doesn't like loose ends. The police are unconvinced, suspicious of Harry's past, and not even an attempt on her life can sway them. It's up to Harry to track down her mystery client. The trail leads from a top racing yard to a smuggling operation in the illegal South Africa world of conflict diamonds. To get to the truth requires all her secret skills. But in a business populated by bloodthirsty mercenaries and financed by ruthless exploitation, how can Harry, alone and abroad, pull off her most audacious heist ever?
- GenresThriller
512 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2010
7 people are currently reading
81 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
May 9, 2013
Excellent thriller; a old fashioned mystery where you don't know who you can trust. The story begins in Ireland with the death of her client's "partner"; explores the world of horse racing that connects to a developing narrative about diamond smuggling and a deadly climax in South Africa. The central character is Henrietta 'Harry' Martinez a computer whizz who inevitably gets into dangerous situations where nearly everyone wants to silence her. She is no Jason Bourne with fancy improvised solutions to get out of trouble or a secret agent steeped in spycraft to fall back upon when the bad guys appear to be winning. However she is a pleasing character and as a child of a gambling father she has a few tricks and bluffs to save her.
Having witnessed the killing she needs to stop becoming the next victim by working out what is going on and before the Police arrest her.
She has to call upon her hacking skills, her gambler's instincts and a family friend to penetrate the worlds of horse dealing and diamond buying. Someone is out to close down the smuggling route permanently and when they threaten her closest family 'Harry' has no-one she can trust. I liked the pace of the novel the unravelling of the plot where the reader has no more idea of who is a threat to our plucky heroine.
It provides insights into two interesting areas of pleasure diamonds and training horses while leading to a deadly conclusion on Table Mountain.
Ava McCarthy has proved her character has legs and in this second outing has cemented 'Harry' as a compelling female lead in what is above all a riveting thriller.
Having witnessed the killing she needs to stop becoming the next victim by working out what is going on and before the Police arrest her.
She has to call upon her hacking skills, her gambler's instincts and a family friend to penetrate the worlds of horse dealing and diamond buying. Someone is out to close down the smuggling route permanently and when they threaten her closest family 'Harry' has no-one she can trust. I liked the pace of the novel the unravelling of the plot where the reader has no more idea of who is a threat to our plucky heroine.
It provides insights into two interesting areas of pleasure diamonds and training horses while leading to a deadly conclusion on Table Mountain.
Ava McCarthy has proved her character has legs and in this second outing has cemented 'Harry' as a compelling female lead in what is above all a riveting thriller.
November 2, 2014
An amazingly fast paced thriller set in the world of illegal diamond mining and horse racing.
When Harry Martinez is requested by a client to break into a home safe alarm bells start to ring and she is uneasy doing the job.
As it turns out her instincts were right as it leads her into the realms of danger.
Whilst cracking the safe the real owner comes back and Harry and her "client" witness a murder.
But WHO killed the safe owner and for what reason?
What is he hiding and what is he involved in to deserve a fate like that?
On the run for her life Harry is frantically trying to solve the puzzle and keep herself and her family safe as the killer has found out her identity and wants any "loose ends" tied up.
Can Harry unravel the mysteries and secrets in time to save her life?
Her path leads her to a horse racing stables and Cape town in Africa, how are these two locations connected and in what way?
Only time will tell but time is something that Harry is running out of.
Well written and well worth reading as its such a gripping page turner.
When Harry Martinez is requested by a client to break into a home safe alarm bells start to ring and she is uneasy doing the job.
As it turns out her instincts were right as it leads her into the realms of danger.
Whilst cracking the safe the real owner comes back and Harry and her "client" witness a murder.
But WHO killed the safe owner and for what reason?
What is he hiding and what is he involved in to deserve a fate like that?
On the run for her life Harry is frantically trying to solve the puzzle and keep herself and her family safe as the killer has found out her identity and wants any "loose ends" tied up.
Can Harry unravel the mysteries and secrets in time to save her life?
Her path leads her to a horse racing stables and Cape town in Africa, how are these two locations connected and in what way?
Only time will tell but time is something that Harry is running out of.
Well written and well worth reading as its such a gripping page turner.
January 3, 2026
"One, a commodity that people didn't need and the other a life force they couldn't do without"
...
Approached to crack a safe by the owner's suspicious wife, reformed hacker Henrietta 'Harry' Martinez can't resist the challenge. However, an almost impossible challenge becomes devastatingly dangerous when the owner returns home unexpectedly, only to become the victim of a ruthless assassin, who also has a vested interest in gaining access to the vault.
With her mystery client having made good her escape with her spoils from the safe, Harry is left trapped with the body, the sole witness to a brutal murder; next in line for silencing by the ruthless killer and his bosses, who don't like loose ends; and a police team who, suspicious of her past and unconvinced by her rather shaky story, are convinced she knows more than she actually does.
It's up to Harry to track down her mystery client and the missing diamonds, before the gang find either of them, a journey which leads Harry on a chase from her office in Dublin, to a top racing yard in the Irish countryside, and on to a smuggling operation in the South African world of illegal conflict diamonds.
To get to the truth requires all her secret skills, but in a business populated by bloodthirsty mercenaries and financed by ruthless exploitation, even Harry realises she is going to need help, especially when the bodies begin to mount up, the life of her rather frail father is also put at risk and the police always seem to be a few crucial steps behind her, despite her best endeavours to convince them of her innocence.
So, who can she trust, when, alone and abroad, she needs to pull off her most audacious heist ever - and get out alive?
…
This is another paperback plucked from the depths of my overflowing bookshelves, although once I began to check out the author, I quickly realised why it was probably still languishing alone and unread. 'The Courier' is in fact, the middle story of a three book mini series featuring Harry Martinez, published between 2009 and 2011. Undeterred in my mission to clear the shelves and yet still unwilling (indeed unable) to relinquish a book until it has been read, I began my journey alongside Harry - and boy! am I pleased I did! There was obviously a backstory, which the author clearly didn't try to disguise. However, enough detail was added to this page-turning thriller, in such a non-intrusive way, that I never felt that there was anything missing from my reading journey; whilst I suspect that, for anyone who had already completed part one of Harry's story, there were few additional wasted words of repetition.
Apart from a few pertinent flashback moments, the story was written in a single, present-day, timeline. There were two main theatres of action, one in Harry's home country of Ireland, the other in and around the diamond mines of South Africa's Cape Town. The narrative and dialogue was almost exclusively delivered in the voice of Harry herself and Mani, one of the abused diamond miners in Cape Town; which meant that every change was clearly marked and the fast-paced action kept flowing freely.
It seemed to me that Harry was desperately trying to make good on the promise to change her lifestyle and stay on the right side of the law, although convincing the police of that was almost impossible and indeed, almost came at the cost of her own life. The one time she really needed them to believe in her, there was only one investigator who was willing to stick his neck out and follow through on the information she provided and by the end of Harry's ordeal, there was an obviously growing feeling of respect and even slight attraction between them, which it would be nice to think might have come to fruition in the final part of the book trio.
Admittedly, given her history, having faith in Harry was never going to be easy, particularly when the body count began to rise at an alarming rate wherever she went as part of her investigation to track down the missing diamonds and clear her name as prime suspect in the murder of their owner, a corrupt diamantaire who had never really operated on the right side of law himself.
However, even a very world-wise Harry was completely thrown off course during this investigation, having her eyes well and truly opened to the not so glamorous side of owning a racehorse stables, or indeed, being one of its most successful jockeys. Also the injustices meted out by some of the more unscrupulous mining companies operating in South Africa was a far from welcome revelation, given the slave-like conditions the mostly indigenous population of miners were kept in and the way in which they were abused and treated. Their avarice, greed and stranglehold on the diamond trading market, resulted in corporate manslaughter at the very least and sickened a robust Harry to her core. To then discover that her own father, now increasingly frail and losing his touch at the gambling tables, was in some way involved and in perilous danger, turned Harry's stomach and caused her to take risks which she knew could be fatal for them both if she got it wrong.
I really enjoyed the dual locations of the storyline, with there being more than sufficient description of both to hold my interest as a rather keen 'armchair traveller', only adding to the detail of the plot, rather than distracting from, or overwhelming it.
Overall; some excellent characterisations, a hard-hitting often difficult to read storyline, plenty of plot twists and turns, and a gratifying ending which I didn't quite see coming!
...
Approached to crack a safe by the owner's suspicious wife, reformed hacker Henrietta 'Harry' Martinez can't resist the challenge. However, an almost impossible challenge becomes devastatingly dangerous when the owner returns home unexpectedly, only to become the victim of a ruthless assassin, who also has a vested interest in gaining access to the vault.
With her mystery client having made good her escape with her spoils from the safe, Harry is left trapped with the body, the sole witness to a brutal murder; next in line for silencing by the ruthless killer and his bosses, who don't like loose ends; and a police team who, suspicious of her past and unconvinced by her rather shaky story, are convinced she knows more than she actually does.
It's up to Harry to track down her mystery client and the missing diamonds, before the gang find either of them, a journey which leads Harry on a chase from her office in Dublin, to a top racing yard in the Irish countryside, and on to a smuggling operation in the South African world of illegal conflict diamonds.
To get to the truth requires all her secret skills, but in a business populated by bloodthirsty mercenaries and financed by ruthless exploitation, even Harry realises she is going to need help, especially when the bodies begin to mount up, the life of her rather frail father is also put at risk and the police always seem to be a few crucial steps behind her, despite her best endeavours to convince them of her innocence.
So, who can she trust, when, alone and abroad, she needs to pull off her most audacious heist ever - and get out alive?
…
This is another paperback plucked from the depths of my overflowing bookshelves, although once I began to check out the author, I quickly realised why it was probably still languishing alone and unread. 'The Courier' is in fact, the middle story of a three book mini series featuring Harry Martinez, published between 2009 and 2011. Undeterred in my mission to clear the shelves and yet still unwilling (indeed unable) to relinquish a book until it has been read, I began my journey alongside Harry - and boy! am I pleased I did! There was obviously a backstory, which the author clearly didn't try to disguise. However, enough detail was added to this page-turning thriller, in such a non-intrusive way, that I never felt that there was anything missing from my reading journey; whilst I suspect that, for anyone who had already completed part one of Harry's story, there were few additional wasted words of repetition.
Apart from a few pertinent flashback moments, the story was written in a single, present-day, timeline. There were two main theatres of action, one in Harry's home country of Ireland, the other in and around the diamond mines of South Africa's Cape Town. The narrative and dialogue was almost exclusively delivered in the voice of Harry herself and Mani, one of the abused diamond miners in Cape Town; which meant that every change was clearly marked and the fast-paced action kept flowing freely.
It seemed to me that Harry was desperately trying to make good on the promise to change her lifestyle and stay on the right side of the law, although convincing the police of that was almost impossible and indeed, almost came at the cost of her own life. The one time she really needed them to believe in her, there was only one investigator who was willing to stick his neck out and follow through on the information she provided and by the end of Harry's ordeal, there was an obviously growing feeling of respect and even slight attraction between them, which it would be nice to think might have come to fruition in the final part of the book trio.
Admittedly, given her history, having faith in Harry was never going to be easy, particularly when the body count began to rise at an alarming rate wherever she went as part of her investigation to track down the missing diamonds and clear her name as prime suspect in the murder of their owner, a corrupt diamantaire who had never really operated on the right side of law himself.
However, even a very world-wise Harry was completely thrown off course during this investigation, having her eyes well and truly opened to the not so glamorous side of owning a racehorse stables, or indeed, being one of its most successful jockeys. Also the injustices meted out by some of the more unscrupulous mining companies operating in South Africa was a far from welcome revelation, given the slave-like conditions the mostly indigenous population of miners were kept in and the way in which they were abused and treated. Their avarice, greed and stranglehold on the diamond trading market, resulted in corporate manslaughter at the very least and sickened a robust Harry to her core. To then discover that her own father, now increasingly frail and losing his touch at the gambling tables, was in some way involved and in perilous danger, turned Harry's stomach and caused her to take risks which she knew could be fatal for them both if she got it wrong.
I really enjoyed the dual locations of the storyline, with there being more than sufficient description of both to hold my interest as a rather keen 'armchair traveller', only adding to the detail of the plot, rather than distracting from, or overwhelming it.
Overall; some excellent characterisations, a hard-hitting often difficult to read storyline, plenty of plot twists and turns, and a gratifying ending which I didn't quite see coming!
April 7, 2022
The second in the Harry Martinez series and just as with the first (The Insider) I could not put this down.
I won't give any spoilers but this is a fast paced thriller involving horse racing, diamond smuggling, market manipulation and greed.
I won't give any spoilers but this is a fast paced thriller involving horse racing, diamond smuggling, market manipulation and greed.
June 22, 2018
Enjoyed it, twisty turny!
December 16, 2023
Love this book, little slow of a start but picks up nicely. It was the first book I've read of this author and series and now I have to pick up the first book and the rest of the series!
May 30, 2020
My first book by this author. Set in the world of horse racing, casinos and the international diamond trade. A run of the mill thriller that didn't really grab me. Too many plot holes and inaccuracies. 2 stars = it was ok.
April 6, 2012
AVA MCCARTHY versteht es hervorragend, den Leser von Beginn an in eine actionreiche Story zu verwickeln: Henrietta Martinez, kurz „Harry“, erhält einen recht merkwürdigen Auftrag, der ihre Qualitäten als PC-und Tresor-Spezialistin erfordert. Es geht um die Scheidung ihrer Klientin Beth Oliver, die aus dem Tresor ihres gewalttätigen Mannes dessen Laptop benötigt, um an wichtige Informationen zu kommen. Doch stattdessen verschwinden aus dem Safe wertvolle Diamanten und ein Toter liegt davor: Beths Ehemann. Und Beth selbst ist verschwunden! Harry hat ihre liebe Not, ihre eigene Unschuld gegenüber der Polizei zu beweisen und stellt daher selbst Ermittlungen an, die sie auf ein Gestüt nahe Dublin führen ebenso wie nach Südafrika. Und die ganze Zeit wird sie von einem Mörder verfolgt!
Die Autorin entwickelt eine komplexe Geschichte um Diamantenhandel und dessen blutige Spuren. Ein zweiter Handlungsstrang in dem Roman beschäftigt sich mit dem Leben des Südafrikaners Mani, was zunächst völlig zusammenhanglos erscheint. Erst später führen Harrys Aktionen und der Überlebenskampf des ausgebeuteten Minenarbeiters zusammen und enthüllen ein brutales Geschäft, in dem Menschenleben nichts wert sind. Der Killer und dessen Motive schweben allerdings zunächst im Dunkeln, nur dessen Auftraggeber tritt in Erscheinung. Alle Charaktere bleiben bis auf die clevere Harry undurchsichtig, und die Autorin fügt nach und nach die Puzzlestücke und Informationen zusammen, um dem Leser erst ganz zum Schluss das vollständige Bild zu zeigen. Ein absolut fesselnder Thriller!
Die Autorin entwickelt eine komplexe Geschichte um Diamantenhandel und dessen blutige Spuren. Ein zweiter Handlungsstrang in dem Roman beschäftigt sich mit dem Leben des Südafrikaners Mani, was zunächst völlig zusammenhanglos erscheint. Erst später führen Harrys Aktionen und der Überlebenskampf des ausgebeuteten Minenarbeiters zusammen und enthüllen ein brutales Geschäft, in dem Menschenleben nichts wert sind. Der Killer und dessen Motive schweben allerdings zunächst im Dunkeln, nur dessen Auftraggeber tritt in Erscheinung. Alle Charaktere bleiben bis auf die clevere Harry undurchsichtig, und die Autorin fügt nach und nach die Puzzlestücke und Informationen zusammen, um dem Leser erst ganz zum Schluss das vollständige Bild zu zeigen. Ein absolut fesselnder Thriller!
November 2, 2012
For me this book had a good plot and a lot of potential, but did not live up to its potential. The back-story, or secondary plot if you like, seemed to get in the way. It interrupted the flow of action and therefore my interest and support for the main protagonist.
The book is well written and well described but just did not flow for me. There are many facts there that seem to be there for the sake of facts sake rather than been built on to give the story depth. In addition, I felt the author overuse certain terms of phrase a few too many times.
Plus, on a final note, I felt that Harry, the main protagonist, mad just too many mistakes for a so called security expert.
Summary .. reasonable, but misses the mark
The book is well written and well described but just did not flow for me. There are many facts there that seem to be there for the sake of facts sake rather than been built on to give the story depth. In addition, I felt the author overuse certain terms of phrase a few too many times.
Plus, on a final note, I felt that Harry, the main protagonist, mad just too many mistakes for a so called security expert.
Summary .. reasonable, but misses the mark
September 17, 2015
Qui n'aime pas les diamants, les chevaux de course, le black jack, les intrigues policières, les vols de haut niveau !!!
Alors c'est certain que vous aimerez ce roman de Ava McCarthy.
L'intrigue se déroule jusque dans les mines de diamants de l'Afrique du Sud.
À lire
Alors c'est certain que vous aimerez ce roman de Ava McCarthy.
L'intrigue se déroule jusque dans les mines de diamants de l'Afrique du Sud.
À lire
September 8, 2011
It is highly exciting when you have a low opinion of a book only to be surprised by its excellence.
December 1, 2013
Ava McCartney writes a fast paced story and easy to grasp storyline, decent stuff
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews