Still awaiting the arrival of his injured wife, Ari Ciminon (The 56th Man) is already on a hair-trigger when a sniper wounds his close friend, insurance investigator Elmore Lawson, a disabled veteran who has been looking into a suspicious injury claim at Osprey Pointe, a gated community outside of Richmond, Virginia. Ari’s search for the would-be assassin begins at Lawson’s house, where he encounters Lawson’s autistic nephew, Freddie, a possible witness to the crime. Both Ari and Detective Yvonne Neumann, Lawson’s lover, are keen to take personal revenge on the shooter. As a result of Freddie’s profound terror at the prospect of sharing a public toilet at a Social Services shelter, the boy is put in Neumann’s care. Unable to watch over him during the day, she places him with Ari part-time. But he has no intention of staying put in his safe house and takes Freddie with him in his hunt for the killer—much to the dismay of Freddie, when he discovers Ari has no qualms about using him as a decoy.
Drawn by Elmore’s notes to posh Osprey Pointe, Ari learns that wealth has its drawbacks. For one, the residents are being blackmailed by their own security service. But those same guards have become vulnerable to an outside force they could never have anticipated: Assassins Without Borders. Confronted by multiple killers is bad enough. But Ari also has to deal with a lusty housewife, Invisible Fencing, scarecrows, hunting dogs, Dollar General, explosive beheadings, cholesterol-laden killer-burgers, overhead speakers, Brazilian banks, Belgian car-exporters, wannabe Nazis, Blu-ray pirates, a reunion between a cat and her kitten that proves less than heart-warming, and a boy who insists on wearing a biohazard suit as a disguise. Topping it all is the reason for the delay in his wife’s arrival: his only surviving son has married a woman named Rachel….
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AuthorI am the author of more than fifteen novels. I was born and raised in Virginia, where I currently reside. I was First-Place Winner of the Hollins Literary Festival a number of years ago. Among the judges were Thomas (Little Big Man) Berger and R.M.W. Dillard, poet and husband of the writer Annie Dillard. Along with my wife, I have rescued and maintained 22 stray cats, which should tell you something about me (good and bad). Permanently addicted to writing, I have just posted the 9th book in the Ari Ciminon (The 56th Man) Series. Archives
August 2023
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