Mr. Nice Spy is a thrill ride. Andee, the female lead, is a fireworks designer who’s recruited by the CIA to help them take down an arms dealer! It’s the second book in the My Spy series and is action-packed and suspenseful and fun. I didn’t love it–but it is exciting.

Andee is working on a firework show for the presidential inauguration festivities in DC. She’s a bit distracted because lately, she’s been wondering who her father really is. Her mother tells her that her father is a famous actor but they have had no contact with him. After thinking about it, Andee decides to take a DNA test to find out the truth. It turns out that the actor is not her father and her mother has been lying to her about it her whole life. She is frustrated and needs answers so she tries to call her mom, but she doesn’t pick up. Then, her boss tells her she needs to be more of a team player. Feeling like everything is crashing around her, she leaves work and heads to the nearest bar for a drink.

When Andee gets to the bar, a big, scary looking guy starts asking her to go home with him and when she says no, he gets upset. She tells him she has a boyfriend and just then a gorgeous Asian American man she’s never met before, comes to her rescue and pretends to be her boyfriend. She thanks him and they flirt a little and exchange names and numbers (He’s Adam Chan but his friends call him Chan) and then she heads home.

But when Andee gets home, she finds CIA agents are there searching her place! The DNA test she took showed that her father is Holt, a dangerous arms dealer who recently escaped from prison and he is looking for her! The CIA ask her if she would help them find her father, so they can put him back in prison. Suddenly, Chan shows up at her door. It turns out Chan is a CIA officer! He asks if he can talk to her after the other CIA agents have wrapped up their search and taken off.

Suddenly, the thug from the bar bursts into her home, hits Chan with a tranquilizer dart and kidnaps them both. He takes them to Andee’s father’s lab, located in a network of underground tunnels in France. Andee is a brilliant chemist and soon realizes that her father is making bioterrorist chemicals in his lab and she and Chan must find a way to save the world from a madman!

I liked that Andee is a scientist that knows her way around a lab. Chan is hearing impaired and it’s unique the way the author incorporates his hearing technology (his hearing aids) into their spy work. Plus, Andee knows sign language (long story that involves the actor she thought was her father) and they are able to stealthily sign to each other in the story.

There are some things I struggled with, the main one being I thought this was going to be a cozy, lighthearted spy thriller. The cover is cute and the dialog and actions of our main characters started out like a romcom, but biological warfare became a very serious and scary issue. Her terrorist father, his weapons and the chemical lab take it to a darker place. It’s fun when they pretend Chan is her boyfriend (they don’t want her father to know he’s a CIA agent) but I had to suspend belief when they make out in the lab but think no one will suspect they are really snooping around. But things start to heat up when Chan’s pretend kisses feel like heaven to Andee and there’s a lot of sexual tension between them.

Mr. Nice Spy might be worth the read if you’re looking for a spy romance with a STEM heroine and a CIA agent with a hearing disability that work together to save the world from a bioterrorist. I am not as big on spy romance thrillers plus this one seemed a little TOO scary but I can see where others with tougher sensibilities might enjoy this one.