cover image For the Love of Pete

For the Love of Pete

Julia Harper, . . Grand Central/Forever, $6.99 (400pp) ISBN 978-0-446-61918-9

In this hilarious follow-up to 2008’s Hot , Harper teams up FBI Special Agent Dante Torelli with Zoey Addler, a sassy poet who calls him “Lips of Sin” and jumps in his car when she sees oddly endearing mob hit man Neil Janiowski kidnap her niece, Pete. Dante is assigned to guard Pete’s father, a federal witness, and he gladly gives chase. In an inspired twist, when Neil leaves Pete and his own infant son alone for a moment, Indian sisters-in-law Savita-di and Pratima Gupta hijack his car, the high-grade saffron he stole from them and—inadvertently—the children. Dante tries to stay serious and track Pete as well as an FBI mole who’s attempting to frame him for the kidnapping, but sassy, scattery Zoey, hapless Neil and bickering Savita-di and Pratima keep the laughs coming. (Jan.)