Criminal Enterprise by Owen Laukkanen

From the outside, Carter Tomlin's life looked perfect: a big house, pretty wife, two kids -- a St. Paul success story. But Tomlin has a secret. He's lost his job, the bills are mounting, and that perfect life is hanging by a thread. Desperate, he robs a bank. Then he robs another. As the red flags start to go up, FBI Special Agent Carla Windermere homes in on Tomlin from one direction, while Minnesota state investigator Kirk Stevens picks up the trail from another. The two cops haven't talked since their first case together, but that's all going to change very quickly. Because Carter Tomlin's decided he likes robbing banks. And it's not because of the money, not anymore. Tomlin has guns and a new taste for violence. And he's not quitting anytime soon.

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Series

4 primary books

#2 in Stevens & Windermere

Stevens & Windermere is a 4-book series with 4 primary works first released in 2012 with contributions by Owen Laukkanen.

#1

#2

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hc.newton

As much as I enjoyed [b:The Professionals|11890809|The Professionals|Owen Laukkanen|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1348760756s/11890809.jpg|16849811], I was unsure I wanted to read a follow-up. How tortured would the contrivances needed to bring these two investigators back together be? I was figuring pretty tortured. Would we be in for another group of criminals allllmost smart enough to get away with it all?

Laukkanen pulled it off, though – by taking pretty much everything about [b:The Professionals|11890809|The Professionals|Owen Laukkanen|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1348760756s/11890809.jpg|16849811] and turning it on its head – the criminals aren't nearly as professional (no pun intended); Stevens and Windermere are kept apart – professionally and personally – for most of the book; the action is all in the St. Paul area, so we see the agents in their home environment, not jet setting all over the country. What's the same? Criminal Activity is just as gripping, just as tense, moves at the same breakneck speed.

Carla Windermere is languishing at the FBI office, an outsider even two years after the headline-making case she and Stevens cracked together. Whether its due to her race, gender, or personality is hard to say, but she's not one of the team – and she likes it as much as she hates it. She misses the excitement, the challenge of the higher-profile case.

BCA Agent Kirk Stevens has thrown himself into his family and his work following his heroics from [b:The Professionals|11890809|The Professionals|Owen Laukkanen|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1348760756s/11890809.jpg|16849811]. He's very involved with his daughter and marriage. He's still doing important work for the state – like cold case murder investigations, providing closure to families still wondering what's happened to loved ones. He's nice and safe, just what his wife wants, but it's driving him crazy. He wants the excitement he got a taste of recently, he wants the sense of fulfillment that he got from stopping an active criminal.

Carter Tomlin, a formerly prosperous accountant is laid off and his debts are mounting – he's too proud, too self-reliant to look for help, won't bring himself to sell off possessions, or ask his wife to take a full time job. He's essentially Minnesota's answer to Walter White – his pride won't let him do what he needs to do, so in a moment of panicked inspiration he holds up a bank. Not only does he get some easy money to hold off the debt collectors, he comes alive in a way he hadn't realized he could before. So he commits more and more robberies, the rush building each time.

When the paths of these three discontented people collide, havoc ensues.

If Laukkanen's third book in this series is half as good, I don't care how he gets Stevens and Windermere together or what felons they are trying to take down – doesn't matter, I'm all in.