Koko the Mighty by Kieran Shea
In the second in the series of futuristic action novels, Koko has come back to her island retreat at the Sixty Islands. Koko and her friend Flynn thinks they have time to kick back and relax, but not before bounty agent Jackie Wire comes to kill Koko for a prized bounty. Koko and Flynn have to leave for their submarine.
You can't get more wild and decadent than the South Pacific resort Koko retired on, back before she had to exit while under fire. She thought she had it all, a brothel and tonnes of cash, but her former employer decided to send out agents to kill her as she felt like it. Now Flynn and Koko are back on the island doing what they like best, but their fun is only short-lived when Jackie Wire, one of the bounty hunters wants her head.
After considering suicide and almost deciding to include himself in a live broadcast suicide called Embrace, Flynn realises he has done the right thing throwing in his lot with Koko. Flynn can't understand why when they got together things went well, then turn bad, but at least it takes his mind off of the depressus he feels. I never thought a sequel could be as action-packed as the first novel, but Shea manages to pull-off the one-liners, fast pace and even faster story, which is first about Koko and her new man trying to escape detection by ditching their identifiers from their wrists. It's an evasive manoeuvre Flynn isn't keen on but second Jackie wants to claim the outstanding bounty on Koko's head, so she tracks them to wherever they go, to the Pacific and beyond.
Koko's boys do a good job of being anime cute and funny but also provide a good service as helpers to her and her lover, "Master Flynn." As they journey, Sebastian Maxx and his two identical twin helpers interest them, drugging them both and interrogating Koko as to why she's there as Koko doesn't know whether Maxx is friend of foe, but Flynn's illness has subsided thanks to one of Maxx's surgeons. It is strange, but the reader might wonder whether or not Maxx is helping the two of them, as while they are there, Jackie can't get to them. So in that way, they have to be thankful for small mercies - even if Maxx has some sinister plot lined up for Flynn.
If you didn't already know that life in the future was fast, you would be misguided as Koko and Flynn have one roller-coaster ride to a future hell and back again. God help me, if there isn't a third novel in the series I think I would go insane. Flynn must have thought he was doing a good thing following Koko but soon notices that wherever she goes, trouble always follows. Great stuff!
