Walking Money [Hardcover]

James O. Born (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 17, 2004

For more than seventeen years with the U.S. Marshals Service, DEA, and Florida Department of Law Enforcement, Jim Born has seen just about everything Florida crime and criminals can throw at him, and he's put it all into as entertaining and accomplished a first thriller as you'll find anywhere this year.

State cop Bill Tasker has had problems in the past, but nothing compared to what's about to happen to him. A satchel with a million and a half in skimmed money is about to go walking. A phony community activist has decided to cash in, but a local FBI agent also has his eyes on the prize, a key witness gets murdered, and it's Tasker who ends up framed for the whole thing. Soon, other people become seduced by the cash as well, and as the bag passes from hand to hand and the body count mounts, Tasker realizes it's all up to him. If he doesn't retake his life right now . . . someone's going to do it for him.

Filled with a rich array of characters, a constantly twisting plot, and an authenticity so deep you can't help wondering how much of this is actually true, Walking Money is indeed proof that "Jim Born is the real thing."

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Putting 17 years of service with various law enforcement agencies to excellent use, Born delivers a riveting, serpentine tale of crooked cops, police politics and a $1.5-million bag of money juggled from one pair of dishonest hands to another. Duplicitous Rev. Alvin Watson and his ex-con partner, Cole Hodges, have been skimming money from Miami's Committee for Community Relief, and everyone—Hodges, a bank manager and even smarmy, rotund FBI task force officer Tom Dooley—has got his eyes on the loot. With a riot for cover, all three aim for it, but it's Dooley who walks away victorious. Then hero Bill Tasker, a Florida state cop with (surprise!) a checkered past but an honest heart, gets framed for the crime, after Dooley stashes a loot-laden satchel inside Tasker's backyard grill and then alerts vulturous media outlets. Tasker gets both the theft and a murder pinned on him while the mother lode is shuffled a few more times, ending up in Dooley's hands once again. Swirling suspicion and startling plot twists keep readers' heads spinning as Born's direct, no-nonsense prose (complete with plenty of off-color remarks) propel this novel to its bullet-ridden conclusion. This is a terrific debut.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

*Starred Review* The title here wittily evokes both the shell game of the plot, in which a fortune appears and disappears in various boxes and briefcases, and the motivation for all those who seek this fortune: enough "walking around" money to last several well-oiled lifetimes. Anyone can play this game--criminals, cops, FBI agents, even a phony community activist. This is the kind of book that, to be credible, needs to be written by someone familiar with scam artists on both sides of the law. Born, a 17-year law-enforcement veteran, is now a special agent supervisor with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, overseeing investigations into organized crime, economic crimes, drug cartels, violent crimes, and public corruption. This background lends authority not only to the plot but also to the dialogue, the edgy cop humor, and the glitzy-grotesque South Florida setting. The hero, Florida Department of Law Enforcement cop Bill Tasker, recently transferred from West Palm Beach to Miami and assigned to the FBI-heavy Robbery Task Force, knows that a satchel with $1.5 million is about to walk out of a bank. The trick is to keep an eye on the prize once it walks and then as it changes hands over and over again. Honest-cop Tasker is framed, becomes a target, and continues investigating as the body count mounts. A sleek and slick caper. Connie Fletcher
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 14 and up
  
• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: Putnam Adult (June 17, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0399151699
• ISBN-13: 978-0399151699
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.3 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (24 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #846,201 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I was always interested in writing and even took a shot as an undergrad at Florida State but aside from one article on street construction in Tallahassee I was unsuccessful.

I moved on to police work. When I was new to police work, as an agent with U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, I had an unrealistic view of what my job would be like. On television, DEA agents are in shoot-outs and get the chicks but in real life they follow suspected drug violators around until they can make a case. If you're a new guy, no one in the DEA much cares about family life or other interests, you just drive. I read a lot of Tom Clancy and W.E.B. Griffin because I liked the idea of learning something about the military. I would read the occasional police book but felt the books didn't reflect my experience as a cop. I was not a CIA trained assassin. I could not rip a shotgun out of someone's hands without suffering a catastrophic injury. I didn't crawl out of crushed police cars and shake off the injury. Neither did any cop I knew. So I wrote a book based on real police work with a ficitonal plot.

The most exciting part of being an author is that my editor, Neil Nyren, is also the editor of my two favorite military writers, Tom Clancy and W.E.B. Griffin.

The third book in the series, Escape Clause, was released in February, 2006. The story follows the main character to a prison to investigate an in custody death that isn't what it appears. By chance, I was assigned to investigate a death at South Bay correctional, the area I had used as a model for the town and prison in my book. Talk about life imitating art. Then, once at the prison, a Department of Corrections Inspector asked me if I was the guy who wrote the books. I gave him a post card for Escape Clause and watched his face as he realized I had written about the Department of Corrections.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A fine Florida debut, October 21, 2004

By 

David Montgomery "Book Critic" (davidjmontgomery.com) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Walking Money (Hardcover)

In the best tradition of Dave Barry and Carl Hiaasen, James O. Born has produced a twisted, fascinating and hilarious first novel of cops and crooks plying their trade in corrupt and juicy southern Florida.

The plot of Walking Money revolves around a crooked minister and his on-the-lam sidekick, who have scammed $1.5 million in cash from their community foundation. When word gets out, every bent operator in the city is desperate to get his hands on the lucre. It's up to state cop Bill Tasker to make sure none of them do.

This book will have readers laughing one minute and wincing the next, as the author leads them along a deliciously circuitous journey with all the skill and polish of a veteran writer. Born spent 17 years in law enforcement, so he obviously knows the criminal territory well. What is surprising is just how good a writer he is. I look forward to his next book.

Reviewed by David Montgomery, Chicago Sun-Times

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great police story, August 28, 2004

By 

EJ (Atlanta) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Walking Money (Hardcover)

This book interested me from the blurbs on the cover. Big time writers like John Sanford don't endorse soemthing unless it's good. This comical story of a cop caught up in someone else's scheme kept me involved from the first page to the last.

The author is a cop and it shows in how the characters intereact, joke and even how they fight. This is a fast moving., involving book with a ton of well placed twists and turns.

I highly recommend it to anyone who likes a good detective story and realizm. I hope there is a series with the main character, Bill Tasker. The guy is interesting without being a carbon copy of TV cops. His life outside his work has a beat and interest as well. This really was a great book

EJ

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great debut for a new South Florida crime fiction series, July 20, 2004

By 

F. Rea (Vero Beach, Florida USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Walking Money (Hardcover)

Elmore Leonard blurbs that "Jim Born is the real thing-" I agree; really liked the sure handling of a police based story un-fettered with forensics details or deep procedural specifics, written by a law enforcement professional.
Walking Money is a story about twists and turns taken following a bag of big money that makes it hard for Bill Tasker, a good cop, to get his life together. Born gives us a tightly written tale introducing a sympathetic character, with good laughs, good suspense and personal drama, in a voice all his own. I'm looking forward to seeing where the series takes us.