Desperation Moon

Rating:
Summary: Damsels in Distress, Bad Guys in Hot Pursuit
Review: Racecar driver Sara Hackett is half a world away, racing her car across the Australian Desert, while her husband, Huntington Beach Police Officer gone bad Clay Tredway is organizing the kidnapping of her niece. Sara has custody of the girl and is involved in a custody battle with the child's paternal Grandmother. Clay has hired a couple desperate characters named Rice and Gundry to do the kidnapping and he's also told them to snatch the daughter of software billionaire Cyril Radoslaw.

The Children get away from their captors, but they find themselves in the middle of a central Californian oilfield in the middle of the night. The kidnappers are hot on their trail even as Sara is hot on the trail of the bad guys, even as her husband is after her. Along the way Sara acquires a couple unlikely allies, the septuagenarian Dottie and her faithful dog, Sherman.

DESPERATION MOON is a straightforward, spine-chilling chiller of a thriller that will have you on the edge of your seat as you read away. I read it in one sitting on a rainy day. Sara is one heck of a character, a woman in trouble who solves her problems her way, even if it means taking the law into her own hands. Dottie and Sherman are to die for. Paige and Kelly, the desperate children who are on the run from desperate men, are plucky, bright and courageous. Sara's crooked cop husband is a despicable slimeball, but strangely enough his hired guns, Rice and Gundry are kind of likable, even if they are dirty, rotten, lowdown kidnappers. I liked this book more than I can say.

Review Submitted by Captain Katie Osborne

Rating:
Summary: A Dangerous Kidnapping Under a Desperation Moon
Review: Right off the bat I should tell you that my husband wrote this thriller and that it most certainly is going to color my review. It would be dishonest of me if I gave this book five stars (which I did) without telling you that. That out of the way, I can go on to tell you all a little about the story:

We start out with thin and emaciated Rice in a bar. He looks in the mirror behind the bartender, sees death in his reflection. He has AIDs, got it when he was in prison and now he wants only to live out the rest of his days lounging around by a pool somewhere with someone to wait on him. But he's got no money. Enter crooked cop Clay Tredway. He wants Rice to kidnap his wife Sara's niece, because the girl's maternal grandmother is wealthy. He also wants Rice to kidnap a billionaire software magnate's two children while he's at it. After all, if one kidnapping is good, three must be better.

Flash to Australia where racecar driver Sara Hackett has just blown the engine on her car during a road race between Sydney and Darwin. Out of the race, she decides to come home early only to discover that Clay has a pregnant mistress and that her seven-year-old niece has been kidnapped. Sara has been in a running custody battle for the girl with Grandmother Estelle and is worried that Estelle will not pay.

Meanwhile Rice and the half wit type partner Gundry, who Clay has foisted on him, have botched the kidnapping of the software guy's kids. They capture fourteen-year-old Paige, but her brother gets away, goes to the cops and it's plastered all over the news.

Sara sees the broadcast and knows right away that her husband is somehow involved, because in his side job he and his partner advise the software guy on security. But before she can do anything about it, Software Guy gets burned to death, in Sara's house, in Sara's bed. Now she's wanted for murder.

Flash now to a plenty scary, dark, dangerous and spooky oilfield in Central California where the girls are being held in Gundry's shack (when he's not kidnapping, he's the oilfield watchman). Rice and Gundry are going to kill the girls, the girls know this and make a daring nighttime escape, but in no time Rice and Gundry are on their trail and the chase is on.

And there is another chase going on down south as Sara runs from the cops. She's figured out where the girls are being held and also that they will probably be killed, so she is desperate to get up to Central Cal and save them. Clay, however, is determined to stop her.

That's the gist of the first third or so of the story. There's lots of action, chase scenes, desperation, pluck and courage going on in this book and I sincerely believe you'll enjoy it.

Ken and I have spent the last ten years or so in the Caribbean living on a sailboat. We had no television, but a lot of books and when you live at anchor off the coast of a tropical isle, you do a lot of reading, writing too if you're so inclined. Ken, who writes for various boating magazines, wrote this one while we were anchored in Simpson Bay Lagoon in St. Martin. He spent eight hours a day on it for three long months. I know they were long, because sometimes he gets a little grumpy when I interrupt him during his work, but holy moly, sometimes you have to eat.

We're back in the States now and trying like all heck to market and sell Ken's books. They're good, I know, and even though I may be biased, I wouldn't steer you wrong.

Reviewed by Vesta Irene

Rating:
Summary: One Terrific, Super Darned Good, Action-Packed Tale
Review: So I opened the book and much to my surprise, the heroine had my name. Talk about identifying with a character, that'll do it, least for me, just drew me right in. But I'd've been drawn right into the book whether or not the strong female protagonist had my name, because I like reading about strong women who don't go running to a man as soon as they get into trouble. And boy does the Sara Hackett in the story get in trouble.

She's a racecar drive just back from a race in Australia. She plans on making her hubby Clay's favorite dinner, but when she gets home, she comes face to face with her police officer husband's very pregnant girlfriend. Worse, she finds out that Clay abuses her. Then she finds out that her niece Kelly, who she and Clay have been raising, has been kidnapped and the kidnappers want a ransom she can't pay. Before she can adjust to that, she hears on the news that software giant Cyril Radoslaw's daughter has been kidnapped too and now she knows Clay has to be behind the crimes, because he has just been hired as head of the software man's security.

To make matters worse, her house burns down with Radoslaw dead inside and the police, led by her husband, think she killed him and started the fire. She has to avoid the cops and find the girls before the kidnappers harm them.

Sara is a super character who never gives up and in her quest to save her niece, she enlists the aid of a determined old woman and her faithful dog Sherman, who support her every step of the way, while she follows one clue, than another, overcomes one hurdle, than another as she races against time to save Kelly. This is one terrific action-packed tale that you won't be able to put down and I'd say that even if the Sara Hackett in the book hadn't stolen my name.

Sara "Babe" Hackett, Girlfriend from the Darkside

Rating:
Summary: Action-Packed, Fast-Paced Thriller
Review: Two young girls are kidnapped. One of them is race car driver Sara Hackett's niece seven-year-old Kelly, the other fifteen-year-old Paige, the daughter of a wealthy software developer.

The kidnappers - Rice, an emaciated man just out of prison and dying with aids and Guthrie, a big, dumb character who works as a security guard in an oilfield who believes violence is the first comeback in an argument - argue about whether or not they should keep the girls alive, and this gives Paige and Kelly the courage to escape.

But when they get away, they find themselves in the middle of a working oilfield out in the middle of nowhere and it's the middle of the night. Very spooky, very scary. They're not gone long before Rice and Guthrie discover their escape. The frightened girls go deeper and deeper into the oilfield, with the kidnappers ever on their heels.

Meanwhile Sara has been framed for murder, is on the run, running from the cops, running toward that oilfield to rescue the girls and running out of time. She has been betrayed by the system and betrayed by her husband, but she's not about to brood over it, because those girls are in desperate need of her help.

This is a fast-past book with excellent and very believable characters. I liked it very much. I think you will too.

Rating:
Summary: Action and Suspense Topped with a Sweet Dose of Revenge
Review: When racecar driver Sara Hackett gets back from a grueling off road race in Australia she finds out that her police officer husband is having an affair. But before the shock of the whole thing can sink in, she learns that her niece Kelly, the child of her dead sister who is in her care, has been kidnapped and that the kidnappers want a million dollars. Money she doesn't have.

Sara has been in an ongoing custody battle with Kelly's paternal grandmother Estelle, who is wealthy, and much as she loathes the idea, she decides to call and ask for help with the ransom, but before she can make that call, another girl is kidnapped, the daughter of a billionaire software developer, and all of a sudden Sara knows she is in trouble, because her police officer husband Clay has been running the software guy's security. Then the rich software guy winds up dead in her bed and she knows instinctively it's because he wouldn't pay. It's a message from her rouge cop husband, "Keep your mouth shut and pay up or Kelly will wind up dead."

Sara is desperate and in a race against time to find out where her husband has taken the girls. They are hers to rescue and she is going to give her all in the attempt.

Mr. Douglas has written a terrific thriller that I couldn't put down. DESPERATION MOON was everything the blubs on the cover promised and more. Strong female characters, action, suspense and most delicious of all, a nice sweet dose of revenge.

Reviewed by Stephanie Sane