From Publishers Weekly
Best known for the praised espionage thriller Dragon's Teeth, this prolific writer, now in his 80s, has more than 70 novels to his credit. (He is also the infamous ex-CIA agent who served prison time for his part in the Watergate fiasco.) This new yarn focuses on intrepid Steve Bentley, ex-CIA spook now an erudite tax attorney, who was originally introduced in a series of five Dell paperback originals under Hunt's pseudonym Robert Dietrich. An urbane, romantic tale of suspense, this novel is jam-packed with Washington politics, blackmail, murder, steamy sex and an atmospheric insider's guide to gourmet dining around the Caribbean islands and the Capital Beltway. Alison Revelstoke Bowman, wealthy society heiress and U.S. senator from Philadelphia, comes to Bentley desperately seeking help. Estranged from her unfaithful car-dealer husband, but unwilling to divorce him and jeopardize her ambition of becoming the first female U.S. president, Alison takes a lover during a Caribbean sabbatical cruise. Then her seducer blackmails her with a videotape of their sexual congress. Bentley is on the case, but within days, the blackmailer is murdered in the senator's parking lot and Bentley deposits the body in a garage at Reagan airport. Powerfully attracted, lawyer and client become lovers. Their plight only worsens as party pressure for Alison to enter the presidential race intensifies. Murders and mayhem escalate as the lovers are menaced by sinister forces and the fate of the damning video remains unresolved. With hard-hitting prose and clipped dialogue, this enjoyable thriller boasts a snappy authenticity, a Don Juan/James Bond barrister and a timely, jaunty mix of sex and politics. (June)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
From Kirkus Reviews
Hunt upgrades his usual trashy pulp thriller (Dragon Teeth, 1997, etc.) into a suavely told tale that showcases Washington, D.C., lawyer Steve Bentley, whos hired by ultra-wealthy Senator Alison Bowman to handle a blackmail case in which she's the victim. Alison had been seduced on a shipboard cruise and secretly photographed in the act with a man called Thomas Brooks. As it happens, Alison is likely to be nominated for the presidency by her partybut not, of course, with this videocassette hanging over her. Bentley proves a smart operator in helping Alison, even when Brooks is found shot to death in his car in the garage of Alison's apartment building. Whoever killed him left the tapes sitting right there on the car floor. Nor was the victim robbed. Bentley reasons that the whole blackmail scheme was an inside job and begins checking through Alison's aideswhen her more or less separated husband Harlan, who has a mistress he often stays with, is also killed. So scratch Harlan as a suspect . . . . Bentley does brandish the usual Hunt hero's connoisseurship. But after seventy-some novels, Hunt can say, as did James Coburn when nabbing an Oscar for his seventieth picture, ``I did it right for once.'' --
Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
