Private Wars (2005)

When last we saw British spy Tara Chace, she had just rained messy justice upon the extremists who bombed the London Underground and left the closest thing she had to a boyfriend dead on a Middle Eastern battlefield. Now she's back, dragged out of retirement to liberate the son of the ailing Uzbekistani president before his power-mad sister kills him. While not as nail-bitingly prescient as A Gentleman's Game, Greg Rucka's sequel, Private Wars, is still a Swiss watch of a thriller: well-machined, precise, and inexorable. Oh, did I mention that Tara's also got a baby girl? That just makes this secret agent one deadly hot mama.