3.5⭐
Read...laugh...repeat! Get ready for more antics!

It’s never a wise move to owe a Russian mob boss anything. But that’s where Finlay and Vero now find themselves in this latest edition of a hilarious series.

The two must find a contract killer known as Easy-clean. And their super-sleuthing is leading them to the conclusion that this mysterious killer could be a cop. So when (super hot- cop) Nick assembles a citizens police academy, Finlay and Vero sign up! What better way to investigate the cops than infiltrating their activities all day long!

This is book three of the series and though it’s capable of standing on its own I highly recommend starting at the beginning, with Finlay Donovan Is Killing It.

⚠️To avoid any embarrassment, be mindful where you read this. You will sure to be laughing out loud!

Was this my favorite in the series? Well no. But a fun romp just the same!

A buddy read with Susanne

Thank you to NetGalley and Minotaur Book

The Finlay Donovan books get more and more fun every single time a new one comes out.

Finlay and Vero are roped into going to a police academy “training” ran by Nick and his fellow officers. They’re still being threatened into completing a murder for hire job and have to dodge goons while trying to determine who Easyclean is. Chaos ensues.

I cannot get enough of these characters and I absolutely have adored every single book in this series.

Finally finding out who Easyclean is!? Yes! Nick and Finlay finally get together? YES! Georgia has a crush? YES! Another great cliffhanger? YES and also Nooooo cause how do I wait!? I am so excited for more.

Side note - I still don’t trust Joey and I definitely KNEW Charlie was up to something.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review!

I love these books. I think Finlay Donovan and Vero are my favorite characters of the year. Somehow, Elle Cosimano can write a mystery, suspenseful, romantic, funny book, with characters that feel completely real. I could imagine meeting Finlay and Vero in a bar and either enjoying ease dropping on their conversations or trying to become friends with them. It is impossible not to thoroughly enjoy the ridiculous binds they get themselves into (and out of) on a regular basis. Third book in the series and the books just keep getting better, the characters more defined, the relationships more entangled and interesting, and the mysteries keep piling up. In this book, something is going on with Steven, but you do not find out what it actually is.... a cliffhanger for book four... and YES! There will clearly be a book four, as this book leaves off in a way that the author could not possibly leave hanging.

I cannot say enough about the hilarity of this novel. It is laugh out loud funny from scene one where Finlay desperately tries to get her son Zach out of a stall in the men's bathroom in Walmart.... and deal with the man who is IN the stall with him. The hits keep coming throughout and when the book came to a close, I felt like an addict jonesing for more.

I am thankful to Netgalley, St. Martin Press and the author for allowing me the opportunity to read this e-galley in exchange for my honest review.

Finlay signs her and Vero up for a week away at a citizen's police academy under the guise of finding inspiration for her next novel. In reality, she is trying to figure out what police officer is really a criminal and use that information to cut ties with the Russian mob.

I know that this is a beloved series so I hate to say it but the truth is that I just didn't love this one. I definitely liked it but not nearly as much as the other books in the series.

The story follows the arc of the previous two books with a mystery to be solved, some sticky situations and a big whopping surprise at the end to make sure you read the next installment in the series. 

I understand that the farfetched and ridiculous goings-on in these books are usually what makes them funny however I found the humour lacking and the situations to be way too unbelievable. The story did end on a good cliffhanger but it wasn't the jolting shock that I expected it to be.

.The story fragged a bit for me and only picked up around the 70% mark.

This book had a lot to live up to. It can't be easy to write a series. Overall, it was a fun read and if there is a fourth book, I will absolutely read it

Elle Cosimano does it again! Another great novel that I simply could not put down. Finlay's story keeps going, and she continues to find herself involved in sticky situations. Most of the time, sequels don't compare to the first book, but both book two and book three have exceeded all expectations I've had. Great read!

4.5 ⭐ This is my favorite book in the series so far. Elle Cosimano has totally won me over with Finlay and Vero. I can't wait for the next book!

When Finlay, an author, is mistaken for a contract killer, her life is turned upside down. Now, she is just trying to stay out of trouble, while also trying to find out who tried to kill her ex husband. She is in over her head with the Russian mob, has complicated feelings for a cop, and her nanny, Vero, owes $200,000 to a loan shark in Atlantic City. What could go wrong? 😉

If you liked the first two books, you will love this one.

I love Finlay Donovan. She is me in a book character. Life is chaos and she is always getting into something. Thoroughly enjoyable read. Can't wait for more!

[arc review]
Thank you to NetGalley, St. Martin’s Press, and Minotaur Books for providing an arc in exchange for an honest review.
Finlay Donovan Jumps the Gun releases January 31/2023.

This is the third installment in the Finlay Donovan series, and it does leave off on a cliffhanger.

I was hesitant going into this because I didn’t actually enjoy the second book all that much, but this one caught me by surprise and ended up being my favourite of the series so far. I found it to be much more cohesive, and less chaotic. The two kids also played a lesser role in this which I think really benefitted my reading experience.

Finlay and Vero are the dynamic duo once again — dodging loan sharks, mob bosses, revising manuscripts, and finding out the identity of EasyClean.
An opportunity is presented to them to take part in the FCPD Citizen’s Police Academy. A week long retreat where they’ll be in close proximity to hot cops (ahem, Nick), forensic experts, and firearm examiners. Here, they’ll hopefully be able to get several steps closer to identifying who EasyClean is, as well as sparking some much needed romance (for book research purposes, right?).

The book within a book was toned down in this, which was a relief. It allowed Finlay to be more present in her actual life to figure out some feelings and realizations.

One of my favourite scenes was probably the mock trial. I remember doing these years ago in law class. The entertainment value was definitely there, especially given the nature of going off-script.

If you’re a fan of integrations of tv show’s like I am, you’ll be pleased to find it here as well. Examples include: Grey’s Anatomy, Temperance Brennan, Clarice Starling, The Walking Dead, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Law & Order.

I could have done without the man in chapter two that was touching bras and sniffing panties in a Walmart with a boner… but that’s probably my only major issue.

Overall, I’d give this a shot regardless if you already love this series or were still on the fence like I was.
With the ending, I’m excited for the next book because I have a feeling that Vero will have a much more prominent role. It’ll be interesting to see what escalates between her and another certain character.


“It was one thing to have a separate identity to stamp on the cover of my books, but I was done compartmentalizing myself to fit in other people’s neat and tidy boxes.
Mostly, I was done denying myself my own happy ending.”

“All this would make a pretty great story, you know. It’s got courtroom drama, car chases, deep cover agents… not to mention a pretty tricky mystery to solve.”

My least favourite book in the series so far and it's probably because it feels like Finlay Donovan's whole situation is being dragged out for as long as possible. And it doesn't seem to be stopping any time soon.

I wouldn't necessarily consider this book filler, but it definitely isn't as engaging as the first two books. Everything feels more side quest-ish, rather than main storyline, if that makes sense.

There is one improvement, however! The love square has died - thank goodness! I'm over guys throwing themselves at FD, so I'm glad she's finally chosen one that seems to be the one to stick for good.

This also has a generous dose of the signature over-the-top dramatics that these books are known for. So I think if you are really quite obsessed with this series, you will find this newest installment to be filled with pages of fun adventure. But, if you are like me and tend to lose interest the longer a story is dragged out, then you may find this one lacking just a tiny bit.

Finlay and Vero are at it again! This time they’ve been hired to locate and identify Mob Boss Felik’s contract killer “Easy Clean”. Hijinks of course ensue (what else is new?!).

Even though Felik is in the slammer, he’s still running the show and expects Finlay and Vero to do his bidding. Trying to find “Easy Clean” of course isn’t that easy. When they find evidence linking him to the police force, Finlay and Vero take desperate measures to catch him. They join the Citizen’s Police Academy, a week-long civilian academy, led by Finlay’s cop friend Nick, in hopes of finding their target. On the plus side, they learn how to shoot, evade pursuers, and harm “bad guys.”

Talk about skills that will come in handy in their new line of work!

If Finlay and Vero can keep out of trouble long enough, they just might find what they’re looking for.

Finlay Donovan Jumps the Gun is a wild, crazy, over-the-top read that will keep readers entertained.

Admittedly, this most recent addition to the series was a tad too over the top for me. While lots of hilarity ensued, as much of the novel was unrealistic, I had a hard time connecting. I am however only one reader, thus I suggest checking out other reviews.

Another buddy read with Kaceey.

Thanks to Minotaur Books via NetGalley for the arc.

Author and single mom Finlay Donovan and her nanny/partner-in-crime Vero are at it again. Finlay Donovan Jumps the Gun begins with Finlay and Vero accidentally destroying a luxury car and finding themselves in the debt of a mob boss. Feliks tasks them with finding a contract killer before the cops do. However, the killer might be a cop. Fate drops a citizens police academy in their laps and Finlay and Vero set off to conquer Finlay's writer's block, hopefully catch a killer, and spend some time with a certain hot cop.

I loved the citizens police academy setting for this book! The proximity to firearms experts, forensic classes, police officers, and a coroner made the plot move forward quickly and helped Finlay to find answers to clues. Finlay Donovan Jumps the Gun was a really satisfying installment in this series, and I was SO happy that we got some resolution to the romantic love triangle.

Finlay Donovan Jumps the Gun was perfectly named and my favorite book yet in the series. I cannot wait to see what comes next for Finlay and Vero.

Thank you to Minotaur Books for an eARC in exchange for my thoughts.

Elle Cosimano's <i>Finlay Donovan</i> series is one of my favorites and the newest installment is on its way! Thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press, I was recently able to read an ARC of <i>Finlay Donovan Jumps the Gun</i> and it's just as hilarious and addictive as the first two books.

This time around, Finlay and Vero head to a citizen's police academy to get inspiration for the book Donovan's writing and to track down a contract killer who is almost definitely a police officer. If Finlay can ID the hitman before the cops do, she'll be able to get out from under the mob's thumb. But, her hot cop not-boyfriend Nick is wooing her, his partner is suspicious of her, and Vero's past is catching up with them both. It's a recipe for drama, lies, and hysterical misunderstandings, and they all happen at break-neck speed.

Cosimano has struck gold with the <i>Finlay Donovan</i> character and concept. It's a fun, fresh take on the mystery genre and I am always here for that. Every installment has proven to be just as fun as the last and I'm hopeful that Elle give us reports of Finlay's misadventures for years to come.

Finlay Donovan is back. This is a quick read but the weakest of the series so far. Finlay and Vero just make so many poor, ridiculous decisions. This book takes place at a citizens police academy, so Vero and Finlay are isolated from their usual world (except Hot Cop Nick) and the series is at its best when Finlay is juggling being a harried working mom with trying not to be a hit woman. I'll still give the next book a try but I wasn't impressed.

✨ Review ✨ Finlay Donovan Jumps the Gun by Elle Cosimano

I LOVED Finlay #1 -- I laughed so much thinking about this single mom in all the situations she got herself in. Book #2 was fine but didn't match up for me.

The great news is book #3 -- this book -- is back in force, as Finlay and Vero get into situations only they could get themselves in. Filled with mishaps and miscommunications, laughs and always looming disaster, Finlay and Vero head off to citizen's police academy, a camp put on for wannabe sleuths led by Nick the hot cop.

Once again, Finlay and Vero get into all sorts of situations around parenting two young kids, sorting through a divorce and other relationships, and fighting back the stress of authoring books. While cozy mysteries aren't usually my jam, the Finlay Donovan books just hit the spot. If you liked book #1, I think you'll enjoy this one too!

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Genre: cozy mystery with laughable moments
Pub Date: 31 Jan 2023

Read this if you like:
⭕️ cozy mysteries
⭕️ mishaps galore
⭕️ parenting disasters always looming

Thanks to Minotaur Books and #netgalley for an advanced e-copy of this book!

Two of my favorite amateur sleuths return in Finlay Donovan Jumps the Gun, book three in the award winning Finlay Donovan series. Readers can expect more zany antics and humorous dialogue interspersed within a really good mystery. I enjoyed every minute of it!

Unfortunately for sleuth hounds Finlay and Vero, Russian Mob Boss Feliks is privy to their dark, still barely buried secrets and is holding the information over their head to blackmail them into helping him identify Mr. EasyClean, a contract killer who may or may not be a dirty cop. Feliks is tightening the corkscrews via thinly disguised threats - help him or risk exposure of their illegal escapades . . . or worse. In a desperate counter move, Finlay and Donovan join a week long Citizen's Police Academy to hide out while getting the inside scoop on what's going down among the cops. With any luck, they'll glean a vital piece of information that leads them to EasyClean's real identity thereby saving their own necks. And wouldn't you know it - the academy is run by none other than the one sensuous cop Finlay has been avoiding . . . Nick. Their budding relationship is convoluted, mostly by Finlay's continued ventures on the wrong side of the law. Too bad because several women are lining up in hopes Nick will snap his handcuffs on them. As much as Finlay would love to be first in line, she has to face reality. There's no way she can risk Nick getting close enough to learn the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth of her illegal activities. She'll continue holding him at bay while she and Vero attempt to survive cop boot camp and weed out the bad cop. I mean seriously - piece of cake, right?

The Finlay Donovan series is first and foremost pure reading entertainment. It's sassy, ludicrous, sexy and believe it or not - delivered between the covers of a fantastic discover-the-bad-guy-without-getting-killed mystery. The antics perpetrated by the two main characters are hysterical, nonsensical and most certainly ill-advised, and yet I can't seem to get enough. Cosimano excels at delivering witty banter and dialogue rich with innuendos which add to the overall comic ambiance reminiscent of Lucy and Ethel of I Love Lucy fame. Books like this generally either come off as cheesy or they kill it, and I'm happy to say Finlay Donovan Jumps the Gun slays it! All the gang is back including Finlay's on again/off again love interests - Steven, her deluded ex who's decided he made a mistake in letting her go, Julian, the delicious young lawyer who also appears to want a second chance, and then there's Nick, the sinfully sexy, dependable, unshakable cop who's interested in the long haul if she'll just trust him enough to come clean. Of course, it's complicated because the harder Finlay and Vero work to get out of trouble, the more it finds them and they end up digging their hole deeper. How much bad luck can two girls have?

Finlay Donovan Jumps the Gun is another great addition to this marvelous series. The pace is insane, the characters larger than life and the plot line more twisted than it appears. It takes a master to manipulate the large cast through this tapestry of interwoven plot lines, and Cosimano does so with style. While it would be helpful to read the first two books in the series prior to this one, each book stands alone to a point. There's a cliffhanger ending, but only in the sense of setting up the next book while most plot points within this book are resolved satisfactorily. If you're a fan of crazy off-the-wall antics and hysterical comedy, sexy tension laden chemistry and an outstanding who's-the-bad-guy mystery, Finlay Donovan Jumps the Gun is for you! Highly recommended to anyone who enjoys highly entertaining mysteries.

Another fun Finlay Donovan book! I loved getting back into the wild adventures of Finlay and Vero. I do wish the author had spent a little time in the beginning catching the readers up on what happened in the first two books. Thanks to NetGalley, St. Martin's Press, and Minotaur Books for the ARC!

She is BACK!

I have been dying for the next Finlay installment since I finished the last one and this book will not disappoint.

This book picks up where book two left off. Finlay and Vero are back at it once again in trying to find Easy Clean to appease Zhirov, cover their own behinds, and help Vero pay off a debt to her loan shark. The two embark on a week long police academy camp with Nick and Georgia's department to see if they can learn which among them is the dirty cop. As per usual, the book is full of laugh out loud moments, along with exciting drama related to Finlay's romances.

I absolutely adored this book. I think it may actually be my favorite of the three. I cannot wait to see what book 4 brings and am PRAYING I get an ARC because I don't think I could wait that long!

Thank you NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review!

I absolutely loved this one! I was so excited to read this, and I can’t wait to add it to my physical collection!

A few years ago, I divested about two-thirds of my library when I moved to a smaller house in a different city. I no longer accumulate paperbacks the way I used to. But I held on to the first Elle Cosimano mystery, FINLAY DONOVAN IS KILLING IT, because it promised a fresh new series with a quirky concept and I wanted to see how Cosimano would sustain the conceit of the reluctant hitwoman without sacrificing the reader’s sympathy for her protagonist.

FINLAY DONOVAN JUMPS THE GUN, the third book in the series (I haven’t yet read the second one), fulfills the promise of the first book with engaging characters and their madcap adventures, adept writing, rapid-fire pacing, twisty plotting, and plenty of comedy. There is an extended period of romantic frustration — or foreplay, depending on how you look at it — that will no doubt please romance fans. Cosimano’s decision to set most of the book at a citizens’ police academy works brilliantly to ramp up the tension between her miscreant protagonists, who are hiding out from various thugs, and the forces of law and order, whose detection they’re also hoping to evade. Cue the small children, who bring their own threat of mayhem to the scene.

The biggest problem for readers is the sheer complexity of the backstory that Cosimano wants us to absorb and commit to memory in order to understand the situation, and I worry that some readers won’t make it past the information dump in Chapter 2. I’d read the first book in the series and yet I had a hard time following this account. There’s simply too much coming at us. Then Finlay’s agent calls, but we’re already on information overload, what with the threats of loan sharks, irate sorority girls, hitmen in pursuit of Finlay’s absent husband, the Russian mob, a contract killer trolling a women’s forum on the web, a bullet-riddled and possibly stolen Aston Martin, a buried body, and a hot detective. By the time we discover that Finlay is a novelist (no, that doesn’t explain the aforementioned circumstances), we’ve either been beaten into submission or already closed the book. This is a problem of editing as well as writing. I hope that Cosimano can figure out how to make it easier for readers to pick up any book in the series and feel welcome.
I received a free review copy of this book via NetGalley.

How is it possible that one book can pull in your heartstrings this much, and make you laugh that hard!?!

I LOVE THIS SERIES!!!

Holy cow. So hilarious. The way she writes about being a mom is my favorite. (Walmart?! Haha!)

If you loved the first two, it’s no surprise you’ll love this one too!!