Run Rabbit Run

I must admit to having a bit of an aversion to pink. With the notable exception of the singer, P!NK, I try and avoid the colour, especially when it liberally covers a book. But I was only too happy to overcome this irrational dislike if it meant I could read another Kate Johnson novel. 

I read and thoroughly enjoyed Kate’s fantasy novel The Untied Kingdom last year and was looking forward to reading one of Kate’s Sophie Green mysteries. Run Rabbit Run is the first of these to be published by ChocLit, an independent publisher of fiction with an element of romance. (The previous four books in the Sophie Green series were published as ebooks in the USA.)

You don’t need to have read any of the previous Sophie Green books to be able to enjoy this one. It works perfectly well as a stand-alone.

(Having said that, I’d now like to read her previous adventures and am hoping that Kate continues the series in future.)

Sophie Green is an ex-spy. Or, at least, she’s trying to be! But when an MI5 officer is shot with her gun and her fingerprints are all over his office, it doesn’t look good for her, so she does what anyone would do under the circumstances… she goes on the run. Not content just to lie low, she tries to prove her innocence and find out who’s trying to frame her for a murder she didn’t commit. Sophie’s boyfriend, the gorgeous Luke, who works for MI6, gets pulled into investigating the case and trying to keep his erratic girlfriend alive. Which, while completely understandable and laudable, might not be his best career move to date and complicates matters further.

I quickly warmed to Sophie Green. She’s by no means a smooth operator, having effectively stumbled into working for the British Secret Service. In fact, she stumbles rather a lot, and it’s mostly into trouble! But while Sophie may be blonde, curvy and comes across as a bit ditzy, she’s certainly no fool and it’s refreshing to see a heroine who’s more than capable of using her brain as well as all her other more than ample resources to stay alive while on the run, as well as working towards solving her own case. She does get help with this but for someone who often looks completely out of her depth, Sophie Green surprised me in all the right ways by coming out on top and proving just how capable she really was.

If you imagine a smarter and more competent female version of Johnny English (Jane English?) but keep the dry humour of the original and add in a dose of Spooks/MI5 to the mix, you’ll get a sense of just how much of a taut, fun and fast-paced read Run Rabbit Run is. It’s a really enjoyable pageturner of a thriller and I was in turn amused, anxious about Sophie’s wellbeing, and intrigued by the who-framed-her element of the story. It was a hugely entertaining read and I loved it – and Sophie. More please, Kate Johnson!

Run Rabbit Run is published by ChocLit and is available from all good bookshops and online retailers. It is available from Amazon UK and Amazon.com in both paperbook and ebook formats. You can find out more about Kate from her Author Website or follow Kate on Twitter.