OLESIA ANDERSON

Olesia Anderson is an agent with Blackrock Association.

Blackrock is a private intelligence-gathering, security-providing, bodyguarding, in-your-face-do-not-mess-with-us corporation. It is one of the most powerful gaining many lucrative assignments from all over the world. Government agencies love using it because of the wonderful plausible deniability. Multinational companies love using it because they can be the good guys or the bad guys or the "we aren't sure which but we'll take no chances".

Anderson is a woman in her late 20's who has been with the company since she graduated college and was for several years one of their rising stars, a "AA-rated" agent. After a couple of rather messy faiures, neither of which were really her fault but she was one literally holding the smoking gun, her star has dimmed a fair amount and the first recorded assignment shows it.

While not a little annoyed that she is not as highly regarded as she once was, Anderson has no real desire to find work elsewhere. Working for Blackrock and doing what she does is all she has known as an adult and, to be honest, all she wants to do. She loves the excitement, the danger, and the thrill of winning.

There is no serious relationship in Anderson's life. She has no steady love interest and no great urge to find one. She definitely appreciates the male sex and picks up an interesting specimen from time to time but never with any plan on more than one or two nights. The first such temporary companion is actually kicked out of bed when the bosses call with a new mission and he doesn't move fast enough. Anderson has very little patience.

She does have a great aim with weapons and a very good ability to hold her own when no firearm is around. She can handle locks, heights, depths, and being on her own when she has to be.

Despite what her bosses might think of her, she can and does get the job done.

When you get thrown around, kicked, pummeled, shot at, stabbed at, and otherwise put into peril at, well, just about every turn, you have to wonder if your chosen line of work is really the smart one. You may wonder but Olesia does not. She is by no means dense or slow. She LOVES it! More importantly, she loves excitement in all sorts of manners and if it did not find her, she would go a-lookin'.

She has other loves, too, such as a keen interest in men, fleeting though it often is. Love 'em and leave 'em gets changed to love 'em and throw 'em out. Thanks for the good time now there's the door. There's not a lot of that because she is usually too busy with the mayhem mentioned before but during her down time, she does get down!

I enjoyed the Anderson books but got to wondering about the girl's self-destructive tendencies. Which if you think about the fact I was thinking about a fictitious character's foibles says a lot about either the reader (nah!) or the writer (yeah!).