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The Accidental Joe book cover
The Accidental Joe
The Top-Secret Life of a Celebrity Chef
2024
First Published
3.53
Average Rating
302
Number of Pages
A maverick celebrity chef reluctantly agrees to let the CIA use his hugely popular international food, culture, and travel TV series as cover for a dangerous espionage mission.When the CIA approaches celebrity chef Sebastian Pike about using his award-winning food and culture travel show as cover for espionage, the outspoken bad-boy host says no. When they point out how roaming the globe interviewing foodies, heads of state, rock stars, journalists-in-exile, poets, subversives, supermodels—even the pope—gives him perfect cover, Pike smiles and says, “F@#! no.” They push. Promising it’s only one mission. Vowing he won’t be in danger. Calling him the Most Valuable Bystander. They’d embed their top agent in his crew to do the spy work. It’s still no. But when they hit him with the patriotism card, he weakens. And when romantic sparks crackle between him and the female agent, Pike’s all in, kicking off a romantic spy thriller in which the globetrotting celebrity chef uses his TV series to help sneak Putin’s accountant out of Russia before he’s exposed as a mole for US intelligence. The high-stakes mission quickly puts Pike in harm’s way. So much for MVB. There’s danger, there’s double dealing, there’s torture, there’s shooting with real bullets. Plus, a minefield of complications from the hot romance that grows between Pike and his gutsy CIA handler-producer, Cammie Nova. From Paris to Provence, this chef is no bystander. Beyond their attraction, Pike and Nova become an operational team, not only to survive the perils they face but to pull off an operation fraught with one twist after another, capped by a shocking, emotional climax.
Avg Rating
3.53
Number of Ratings
235
5 STARS
20%
4 STARS
32%
3 STARS
32%
2 STARS
10%
1 STARS
5%
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Author

Tom Straw
Tom Straw
Author · 4 books
TOM STRAW published his first mystery novel, The Trigger Episode, in 2007. Subsequently, writing as Richard Castle, he authored seven more crime novels, all of which became New York Times Bestsellers. Buzz Killer is Tom Straw’s first book under his own name since that blockbuster Nikki Heat series. He is also an Emmy- and Writer’s Guild of America-nominated TV writer and producer having written and produced Night Court, Parker Lewis Can’t Lose, Dave’s World, Grace Under Fire, Cosby, Whoopi, and Nurse Jackie. A former board member of the Mystery Writers of America, New York Chapter, he lives in Connecticut, where his home is his castle.
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