From Amazon.com
You know you're in smart hands in this latest thriller by Robert Ferrigno because his character, ex-undercover cop Val Duran, appears on the television quiz show
Jeopardy. His reasoning? To catch the attention of a dangerous adversary named Junior.
Val smiled, imagining Junior's expression when he saw the show. Junior taped every episode of Jeopardy. Half the dope dealers in south Florida were glued to the tube every afternoon, making bets, yelling at the contestants. Junior once shot out a forty-seven inch Mitsubishi over a missed answer.
Junior also killed Val's former partner and threatened his only living relative, his grandmother, Grace. Val takes the old woman with him from Miami, and they hide out in Southern California. Here, he plots some serious revenge on the Floridian villain. Complicating matters are a beautiful, troubled marine biologist named Kyle Abbott and her seriously dysfunctional wealthy family. There's also a pair of killer extortionists after the Abbott family's fortune--a gorgeous sociopath named Jackie and a monolithic Gulf War Syndrome victim named Dekker. They all start out as very nasty genre stereotypes, but end up, thanks to Ferrigno's marvelously deft touch, as understandable and even likable human beings. There are even a couple of fresh insights into the overused landscape of Los Angeles: "Even before dawn the freeways buzzed with ambition. It made him homesick for the sultry indolence of Miami, cruising down the A1A, windows rolled down so he could smell the oleander blooming along the median."
Other Ferrigno titles include Dead Man's Dance and Dead Silent. --Dick Adler
--Ce texte provient de la
Hardcover
édition.
From Publishers Weekly
As if invigorated by his move to a new publisher, Ferrigno (The House of Latitudes) has produced his best novel in years, a splendidly readable, cinematic thriller setAas is his wontAin Southern California and populated by mean drug dealers, beautiful surfers, "trust fund babies," "thugs on commission" and murderers for hire. Ferrigno's reluctant hero is Val Duran, an ex-cop: he's first seen in Miami, where Junior, a vengeful narcotraficante, has Val's oldest friend blown away before Val's eyes. Val flees to L.A., where he finds work as a technical adviser to "ultra-low budget action movies." Soon Val also finds Kyle Abbott, "smart and sinewy, a take-no-prisoners surfer" from a rich Laguna Beach family. Her arm brushes his, and it's love. Kyle's half-brother, Kilo, conspires with lawless, sadistic Jackie Hendricks and her Gulf War veteran sidekick, Dekker, to kill Kilo's stepmother, Kyle's mother. The ensuing Abbott family intrigue, and Junior's vendetta against Val, set up a landslide of betrayals, hard decisions, secret pacts and violent stratagems. Will Val's passion for Kyle expose her to Junior's wrath? Has Kilo fallen in love with Jackie? Will the dealers bring in the feds? Ferrigno introduces, and updates expertly, all the properties of SoCal noir: film, boats, drug runners, terminal illness, financial chicanery and underwater danger. The array of subplots and mixed motives should entice fans of Elmore Leonard and Ross Thomas. Ferrigno's complex edifice of wrongdoing rises to an ending that feels just right, and shows how far some racy characters will go in search of moneyAand for love. Agent, Mary Evans.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--Ce texte provient de la
Hardcover
édition.
de Lee Child
de Stuart Woods
de Michael Connelly
de Lee Child
