Koko The Mighty - Kieran Shea

Koko The Mighty

Kieran Shea

Titan Books, Aug 25 2015, $14.95

ISBN: 9781781168646

Though the VIP who issued the Ultimate Sanction Eliminator bounty on retired mercenary Koko Martsellar died (see Koko Takes a Holiday) it remains legally in place.  Still smarting over her last failed encounter with Koko, obsessed bounty hunter Jackie Wire arrives in the Sixty Islands to collect the fee.  Wire assaults Saloon Island owned by Koko and managed by the latter’s lover former sky-cop Jeddiah Flynn.  At a time when helpless Jeddiah suffers from a life threatening cut to his leg, Koko enables them to escape.  At the same time SI security Britch extorts money from an irate but helpless Wire.

During a horrific storm Koko, using a stolen vessel, barely manages to get them to a free zone where Sebastian and Dr. Corelle conduct experiments on willing supporters.  Realizing she has no choice as her lover needs medical attention or will die, Koko struggles to behave herself.  She becomes concerned when people vanish and recalls a teen die trying to escape the island fortress when they initially crashed here.  Meanwhile Wire knows where she took refuge and plots a robotic army attack; while their island hosts plan to test their experimental drug on perfect specimen Jedidiah but also remove Koko from their island paradise.

The second Koko twenty-sixth century science fiction is an exhilarating action-packed drama that cleverly uses a somewhat disguised Pacific Oceania islands as a wonderful backdrop.  Although over the top due to obsessed villains like the wired hunter and the mad scientists; readers will enjoy Koko’s outrageously entertaining escapades at a time when the heroine learns more about the tethering dangers of loving relationships (sans Flynn, Koko the Mighty is Koko the mighty invincible).

Harriet Klausner