From Publishers Weekly
Subterfuge mates with hidden identity to beget a complex, solid mystery thriller in MacGregor's ( Spree ) hardcover debut. Here, the murder of an old friend plunges Miami husband-and-wife PI team Mike McCleary and Quin St. James into hellish circles of aliases and shady international dealings. Just before retired criminology professor Charlie Potemkin was shot to death in his apartment, he mailed packets of information to a few friends, including Mike and Quin. The material had been passed along to Charlie by Steve Heckler, a man with shadowy government connections who can no longer be located. Mike gives the photos they received to his former employer, Miami's Metro-Dade PD, and learns that they depict Lawrence Crandall, a developer whose efforts to acquire land occupied by senior housing had been hampered by Charlie. Rumors of irregularities in the Crandall company prompt the police to send Quin undercover as Crandall's new secretary; in this guise, she comes up against John Gabriel Tark, a tracker and hit man who has been sent--by whom is the question--to recover Heckler's incriminating information. As Hurricane Alfred wreaks havoc in south Florida, Mike and Quin follow separate paths to the corker of a conclusion.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Kirkus Reviews
Minutes after mailing four envelopes filled with photos and cryptic notes to four different addresses, retired criminologist Charlie Potemkin is gunned down in his apartment, and it's up to husband-and-wife sleuths Mike McCleary and Quin St. James, who got one of the envelopes, to figure out what Charlie had on developer Lawrence Crandall. As Quin, undercover as Crandall's secretary, noses out hints of what's really going on at Chique Cherries, his flavoring factory, Mike begins to uncover Crandall's links to the CIA and a plot involving not mere drugs but ``the future of the free world.'' By the time a climactic hurricane aborts the maverick feds' multiple kidnappings of our heroes by flattening the offending plant and much of the cast, you'll have worn out your pencil jotting down the interagency betrayals. The action is nonstop, though Quin and Mike, heroes of seven paperback originals, are as forgettable as the interchangeable spooks who are trying to make their hardcover debut into their swan song. The atmospheric Miami backdrop should boost local sales. --
Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
