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Adam Whistler can't remember how many people he's killed, but he's such a nice young man the reader isn't troubled by his murky past. Besides, the killings were legal, sort of. They were sanctioned by the federal drug czar and his minions, especially Adam's boss, Felix Aubrey, who turned the government's anti-drug forfeiture laws into a honey pot that sweetened his own bank account and those of his prominent friends, including many in the radical wing of the religious right. But as John R. Maxim's satirical mystery opens, Adam's fallen in love, and his deepening affair with Claudia, a young woman whose near-death experience convinced her she's been appointed his guardian angel, becomes the fulcrum of this taut, funny offshoot of Maxim's popular Bannerman series. Adam's father wants him to come into the family firm as a go-between lurking in the shadows of multinational business. But first he has to get Adam out from under his enemies, especially Aubrey, whose ledger (containing the records of his illegal search-and-seizure scam) Adam sequestered as insurance when he quit Aubrey's employ. The elder Whistler sends Adam and Claudia on a year-long sailing sabbatical to hide him from Aubrey's gang. But an assassination plot hatched by the Reconstructionists, a gang of religious zealots controlled by Aubrey, brings Adam and Claudia back into the eye of the storm. Adam has a couple of powerful weapons on his side: Claudia, who may not be an angel but definitely has acquired some heavenly powers since her brush with death, and the Bannerman operatives, whose skills and strategies will be familiar to Maxim's fans. The author's tongue is so firmly planted in his cheek that the satire may be lost on some readers, but they'll find plenty of action, superb pacing, and picaresque characters to keep them enthralled. --Jane Adams
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