Final Assignment is a cute, atypical mystery/thriller. Set in Russia, the story features strong female lead characters.

I found the plot to be a little rushed and the characters not well fleshed out. However, the story had some intriguing twists and links to fascinating historical myths.

A nice, quick read for an evening. ( )

Mila returns to her home town in the Ukraine after the death of her mother to look after her father and to take up a teaching position at her former university.

When a rare book goes missing from the antiquities department Mila gets dragged into the investigation to find the thief.

More a short story than a novella this was an enjoyable read with a couple of twists to keep you interested. Not long enough to allow any real characterisation but with a plot that races to its conclusion.

An enjoyable short read.

This nicely introduces us to Mila ahead of the next book in the series Ivan’s Dilemma where she once again gets sucked into a police investigation…but this time its murder ( )

I had thought this book was a cozy mystery which I was looking forward to reading. However, it certainly wasn’t a cozy mystery dropping the f-bomb many times. I also didn’t get a feeling on exactly where they were located, the city was Chernivtsi which I don’t know where this is. The story didn’t flow for me at all. I felt there were many sections which didn’t make sense and it jumped around quite a bit. I wasn’t really into the characters and the plot was ok, but didn’t feel like it was much. My first read from the author and it didn’t do much for me. I will give the author another chance in a future read. ( )