First things first. I need to mention I received this book from GoodReads Giveaways. My review was not influenced by this in any degree.

Lexi Carmichael is the heroine of the book. She is a somewhat typical geek who is very good in math and computers and does not have good social skills - you know this kind. She is also a fairly good-looking woman - despite her modesty saying otherwise.

She worked as a low-level grunt in NSA headquarters in Washington, DC. Her work was a boring routine (is not it such for the most of us?). She thought she would never get the excitement of famous spies from fiction, like James Bond in her work. She was completely right: the excitement came not from her work, but from her personal life.

One of uneventful evenings a guy in a dark alley asked Lexi to give him papers her best friend supposedly mailed to her. His gun made a very convincing argument. Lexi, being completely unaware of such papers managed to talk the guy into leaving her alone on the promise she will get in touch with him the moment she has the papers. Or else.

When she got home she found her apartment thoroughly thrashed with yet another guy waiting. He made the same request using the same convincing argument and asked her to give him the papers the moment she has them. Or else.

Lexi still might have had a slight hope of staying out of this, but it was shattered shortly when her neighbor brought her the package in question which was delivered to the neighbor instead of Lexi. It also turned out Lexi's friend who sent her the papers disappeared without a trace leaving our poor heroine to deal with the mess. Fun ensures.

Even from my description of the beginning of the book you might have guessed it is full of cliches. You are right: there are cliches abound from thrillers, cozy mysteries, romance, and chick lit genres.

Lexi works for NSA which practically nobody consider good guys these days, and for a good reason: spying on your own people does tarnish the reputation. I am an IT professional so some of the descriptions of computer-related activities felt like they were written by a person who never approached a computer closer than a couple of miles. I strongly suspect professional biologists would feel the same regarding some other moments of the book.

I mentioned romance. What is the romantic cliche practically everybody hates and are still held dear by romance writers? Love triangles. I am happy to say there is none here. Instead we have a love octagon at least as a bunch of handsome guys kept falling at Lexi's feet.

So it sounds like I would have with a passion, right? Wrong as I enjoyed reading the book. I flew through it in three days considering that these were really busy days for me. What happened? Humor most definitely helped as well as Lexi's attitude.

Lexi being a geek who hates shopping and does not think math is incomprehensibly difficult was another positive side. I am tired of bimbo types of women seemingly very common in literature. Lexi is not one of them.

The mystery itself is quite intriguing and complicated with several interesting and unexpected twists. As redundant as it sounds, I read mystery books for a good mystery; this one delivers.

Finally the writing style makes it a very easy mindless fun read. If you manage to suspend your disbelief you are in for a fast ride.

The final rating is 4 stars - to my complete surprise.

No One Lives Twice by Julie Moffett is a great start to a new series! Lexi, the main character, is super smart, very loyal, and socially ackward. A lady after my own heart!
Note: this review contains spoilers! A day that starts out like any other quickly becomes anything but as Lexi is accosted not once, but twice by gun toting men. Lexi's best friend, Basia, has sent Lexi a document slew of alphabet organizations want.
And then there are the men: Beefy, who thinks Lexi is cute but won't hesitate to shoot her; Lars, the hot karate teacher; Slash, the Italian who is a super computer hacker, spy, whatever; and Finn, the lawyer who, well you're going to have to figure that one out.
Then there are break ins, the bugged phones, the trackers, the flight to Europe. I think you get the picture!
But always in the front of Lexi's mind is her drive to save her friend and an innocent young lady.
Impossible to put down at times, well crafted, great characters, humor interspersed everywhere, with an ending that has the reader wanting more.
I'm ready to start the next book and not sleep for awhile!

I loved this book. The only problem is that she's supposed to be a genius computer whiz but the author makes her out to be some clueless female who has to go to her male counterparts for help. The first scene is her screwing up a job trying to find a hacker. Yet somehow she's still asked to join a new cyber security firm? Seemed like a stretch to me.

I feel like I should go into "Book Anonymous" for this whole series. I have taken to calling this series "reading crack". I read all nine of these books in 7 days, and about the third book I became a "Lexington Carmichael dealer". I got my mom to read them as well as my father, sister, and niece.
These book are hilarious, the stories are fun and exciting, and the characters are lovable and relatable. All this done without using excessive language as a crutch and less gratuitous sex than a daytime soap.
Can't wait for the next one!

Not a bad start, but rather formulaic. It's an easy read, Lexi the LC is likable although blandish. She could be a geek girl without all this stereotyping. The plot requires enormous suspension of disbelief. Typically (a la all SP wannabes) Lexi is in her middle twenties, plain, geeky, never had a boyfriend when Viola! the two hottest - and I mean H.O.T.T.E.S.T - men on the planet start circling her. There is the super hot sexy Irishman, the 'good' guy with a touch of 'bad boy' (Morelli) he's uber rich, heir to a winery, a playboy celebrity...now mesmerized by Lexi's geeky down to earth-ness. Of course! There is The Bad Boy (Ranger). He's a 'national treasure' for his uber hacker-ness and apparently a new James Bond. He also has an accent and obviously can (and has) any beautiful woman on the planet...but he is also mesmerized by Lexi's geeky down to earth-ness! Lexi has the required super hot, super guy-magnet but big hearted BFF. Throw in the meddling parents (mom, a former beauty queen) and there you have it.
Given the above drawbacks (IMO) the book was still entertaining and I didn't walk away wishing for my time back. With Lexi's educational background, the security govt job she has, being raised in the type of uppercrust family with two older brothers(!), the author could've done more with Lexi's character than fall back to geek girl stereotypes and Stephanie Plum copies. Seriously - why does ever lead character have to be do ridiculously clumsy they come off as brain dead bimbos? It's established Lexi isn't brain dead early on; socially awkward yes, but last I knew that did not translate to physically awkward, so much so she can't even stay upright or stop banging her own head into things during chaotic situations!
It's too bad the author didnt choose someone like the geek girl on NCIS for reference whe building Lexi and instead went with the more insulting formula. I have the next five in this series and it wasn't horrible so I will continue.