The Acronym - White Nights of St. Petersburg [Paperback]

Rebecca Lerwill (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 15, 2009

Where does a federal witness turn when even one of the most powerful clandestine agencies can't protect you from harm?

That is precisely the horrific dilemma facing Mia Trentino. Scheduled as a witness for the prosecution, Mia returns to Russia to testify against a man whose affiliation with the Russian Mafia led to her terrifying abduction less than a year before.

During her testimony, Mia's safety is entrusted with the members of the Acronym, a covert agency consisting of former FBI, CIA, and international law enforcement agents. Their primary tasks are the war against international crime and espionage and assisting federal agencies with securing their high-profile witnesses in a special protection program.

When Mia arrives in St. Petersburg to take the stand, her fiancé and Acronym agent, Douglas Farland, disappears without a trace and is accused of treason.

With only limited protection, Mia suddenly finds herself trying to negotiate a deadly double-task; can she elude the merciless pursuit of the Russian Mafia in time to find out the truth about Douglas, or will they succeed in silencing her by any ruthless means they can find?

Editorial Reviews

Review

The Acronym has all the elements of a good thriller. Lerwill lures her character Mia Trentino (and the reader) through a labyrinth of international intrigue rife with betrayal, mobsters, mayhem and lust. --Rita Schiano, author of Painting The Invisible Men and Sweet Bitter Love

Rebecca Lerwill has done it again! Her feel for the covert activity that blended so well with foreign intrigue in her first novel, Relocating Mia, continues with Lerwill's same touch in The Acronym. --Bill Flynn, author of The Feathery

Rebecca Lerwill is a fresh voice with a fresh angle on suspense, destined to keep readers happily turning the pages as fast as they can. --#1 New York Times Best-selling author, Tami Hoag

Rebecca Lerwill has done it again! Her feel for the covert activity that blended so well with foreign intrigue in her first novel, Relocating Mia, continues with Lerwill's same touch in The Acronym. --Bill Flynn, author of The Feathery

The Acronym has all the elements of a good thriller. Lerwill lures her character Mia Trentino (and the reader) through a labyrinth of international intrigue rife with betrayal, mobsters, mayhem and lust. --Rita Schiano, author of Painting The Invisible Men and Sweet Bitter Love

About the Author

Rebecca Lerwill is a native of Germany who moved to the United States in the mid-1990s. In the summer of 2007 she published her debut novel, Relocating Mia, a romantic thriller which has been recognized as a winner and finalist by three national book awards, including the prestigious Indie Excellence award. With her husband, Troy, she resides on their horse farm near the Wasatch Mountains in Utah.

Product Details

• Paperback: 318 pages
• Publisher: Langdon Street Press (a division of Hillcrest Publishing Group, Inc.); 1 edition (April 15, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1934938408
• ISBN-13: 978-1934938409
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 4.9 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,521,188 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars From a Safe House to a Perilous Mission, April 20, 2009

By 

Bill Flynn "The Feathery" (Boston area) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Acronym - White Nights of St. Petersburg (Paperback)

Rebecca Lerwill's, well crafted book, The Acronym, takes the reader from the tranquil safety of a ranch in Northern Colorado into a cauldron that boils with danger in Mafia infested Russia. On the way there she builds the characters of The Acronym team, Farland, Hirsch and Ludvika. Lerwill tells of the training and brass knuckle toughness needed for their mission to protect Mia Trentino from Sergei Selkin's unrelenting thrust to keep her from testifying against him. Lerwill inhibits the sensitivities of this hard core Acronym assault team until she makes them rise up at the proper moment to feel and even to love.

The Author, Rebecca Lerwill, has done her homework on the advanced assault technology used by covert agencies. Was it a research effort on her part or has she been there and done it? The reader must decide that.

The Acronym personifies the age of terrorism. This book of fiction very well characterizes those who have the mission to combat terrorists in our real world. The task by the team to keep Mia safe from the Russian Mafia kingpin will keep the reader spellbound. At the end, some real human sensitivity kicks in to offset that brass knuckle toughness of the Acronym team leader, Douglas Farland. Mia will experience his response at the very time she is in need of it.

If there was a star rating of four and a half I'd raise The Acronym to that level...a rating above all the books I've reviewed on Amazon. A well crafted novel by an accomplished author is now ready to be read and enjoyed.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars full of action, yet satisfyingly nuanced, April 12, 2009

By 

Dennis Batchelder (Bellevue, WA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Acronym - White Nights of St. Petersburg (Paperback)

"The Acronym", Rebecca Lerwill's sequel to "Relocating Mia", is an action-packed thriller with just the right amount of spice.

Mia Trentino must return to St. Petersburg to testify againt the Russian Mafia. They want her dead, and Douglas Farland, her finace, and his Acronym agents work hard to keep her alive. But Doug gets framed for treason, and as Mia's protection is diluted, the Mafia closes in.

Lerwill weaves a multi-layered tale: one minute we're sneaking up on castles with Douglas in Poland, and the next we're flirting with Mafia bosses with Ludvika in St. Petersburg. There are plots and sub-plots, all choreographed to lead up to a final confrontation on the Neva River.

I like how Lerwill made her characters full-bodied. The good guys were decently conflicted, and the bad guys had enough redeeming qualities to make me sympathize with them. Mia and Douglas both grow in this book, and it's fun to watch Ludvika interact with Uwe Hirsch, the new Acronym agent (Do they get it on? You'll have to read it to find out).

Great job by Lerwill - and I'm looking forward to more of her books.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Mission:Impossible??? Not anymore!!! Lerwill has just completed the assignment in style!!!!!, April 11, 2009

By 

NYWriter "Writerrrr" (New York, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Acronym - White Nights of St. Petersburg (Paperback)

Ever have a footrace with a novel? Well, neither have I ... until now!!!! I feel like I've just run a marathon that did me no good at all. Why? Because I was chasing someone in a luge!!! That's what Rebecca Lerwill must have been in when she was writing The Acronym, her sensational new novel that I can't say enough good things about!!! Let me start by saying this, "Ding, ding, ding! Folks, we have a winner!!!!

The Acronym snaps, sizzles and kabooms across the pages. It's drinking vodka on the Volga! It's watching the Kirov and listening to Tchaikovsky! It's dancing the Barynya in an embroidered Russian tunic ... and more! It's filled with those kind of people. You know the ones - they always seem bigger, smarter and more attractive than everyone else. They even seem to have better sex - and more of it! It's like they were born with an extra chromosome or something!!! Well, those are the people we meet in-between these pages. Ms. Lerwill packs `em all in there and they sure know how to interact! There's Mia Trentino, the sexy, beautiful, vulnerable girl that an evil Russian mafia kingpin named Sergei Selkin wants dead. Selkin will stop at nothing to prevent her from testifying against an affiliate that was responsible for her abduction. And, psssst ... he carries a knife!! Then there's Mia's devilishly handsome boyfriend Douglas Farland. You just know he's the kind of man that would take a bullet for the woman he loves. Of course, with his reflexes he'd probably catch it in his teeth! Then there's Ludvika, the femme fatale Russian smorgasbord of an agent! When she's on the job, she's as cold and calculating as a Siberian winter, but man, does she clean-up good! Then there's the dependable, true blue Brian Secona. He's the one with the sign in his window that says, "Forget about the pit bull - you better worry about me!" And there's a new guy, Uwe Hirsch, a German hunky-poo with a bod that goes on for days! What? Does Acronym pay these guys by the ounce or something??!!!! The evil Selkin - along with assorted cohorts - keep them all on their toes, bobbing and weaving and fighting just like Ali in his prime!!! The dialog and action crackle across the page and we go right along with it using every bit of our wits and agility to keep up!!!! I felt like a Jack Russell terrier on one of those doggie obstacle courses. Lerwill had me running and weaving through that set of poles!!!

What can I say? The Acronym has it all. Great characters, a solid story, incredible action, plot twists and romance!!! It's fun, exciting and moves along at a breakneck speed! With this book, Ms. Lerwill establishes herself as an author to be reckoned with. I suspect in the very near future you'll get used to her name being in the top ten bestsellers list. The Acronym has my highest recommendation.

Ms. Lerwill - Kudos, Spasiba and Skol!!!!