JACLYN JOHNSON

       Jaclyn Johnson is an agent with the CIA.
       She is also an extremely successful model gracing the covers of numerous publications and flying from one exotic locale to another as famous photographers vie for her time and her stunning looks and figure. This dual-identity was designed by her boss and mentor, Alexandra Dupuis, the Director of the CIA, to provide unchallengeable reasons for her travel around the world without drawing attention more than a gorgeous super-model would normally attract.
       It was Dupuis who assumed guardian duties over Johnson when she was just 14 years old and her parents, attending a meeting at the Pentagon on 9/11, perished in the attack. With no one else to watch over her, Dupuis and the rest of the Company took her in. Leaving nothing to waste, they began a long in-depth series of lessons to turn this beautiful and intelligent adolescent into the young woman she has become - an agent able to handle herself in all forms of trouble.
       One other aspect of Johnson that makes her such a unique agent is an infirmity that on its surface should have totally ruled her out but which was turned into an asset that more than once would save her life. Johnson is almost totally blind.
       The affliction is a severe reaction to light. Anything brighter than dim can produce stabbing pain and horrendous headaches. She began to suffer from it when puberty started and by the time she was 12, she was forced to live either in very dim rooms or wear strong sunglasses. This forced her to rely more than most on her other senses such that in a darkened area, she had the advantage.
       Even more to her advantage, though, were the specially made Foster Grant sunglasses that she routinely wears, shades which keep others from learning what she is looking at even as they provide a number of sensory instruments and a heads-up-display filled with a plethora of information.
       As the series begins, Jaclyn Johnson has been an agent-in-training for nearly a decade as she built up her modeling career and perfected her clandestine skills. The first recorded adventure constitutes her first official assignment.

       When I read the tag line to this series, “If Bond Had Boobs”, I expected something quite different than I got. It isn’t hard to figure out what I thought was being said – lots of gratuitous sex and violence, to paraphrase a line from a Bond movie.
       What they apparently meant was that the protagonist was a good-looking action hero loaded with nifty gadgetry going up against power-hungry nutcases. In that case, they were straight on.
       Jaclyn Johnson is loaded with very interesting “toys”, including several handguns carried on her small, lithe body. The handiest of them all is her HUD which can let her know when there is someone lurking nearby, saving her butt on more than one occasion. How realistic is such a thing is beyond me but it is best to just shrug and go with it – the enjoyment level is much higher.
       And the bad guys are clearly bad and often nuts, like Bond faced on numerous occasions.
       I would not put Johnson quite in the Bond category but they are fun and they definitely grow on you.

My Grade: B-

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