Run For Your Life By Judith Lucci in Love Under Fire Box Set!

“Hey, John,” Secret Service Agent Rob Henry said softly as he peered at his monitor. “I’ve got some turbulence over on the southern end of the estate, looks like it’s near the riverbed. Can you come over here and check the topo map with me?” 

Special-Agent-in-Charge, SAC John Cole, a distinguished man with silver hair in his early fifties, moved quickly from his desk to Rob’s and looked at the map on Rob’s monitor. “Yeah, I see it. It looks weird. Could it be a vibration?” 

Rob tugged at his ear, a sure sign he was in heavy thought.” It could be, but I’ve never seen vibration appear like that on the monitor. The pattern seems, well, inconclusive.” He reached for his coffee.  

John shrugged his shoulders. “It’s been quiet around here for months and we both know there’s chatter about a planned attack on the Congressman’s estate.” He paused and gazed at the map on the monitor. “Blow it up. Put the image up on the wall.” 

Rob flipped a switch on his main console and immediately a topo map of Wyndley Farm illuminated the entire wall of the Secret Service compound located on Congressman Adam Patrick Lee’s rural Virginia estate. Both men, retired military Special Forces and seasoned Secret Service agents, studied the image on the wall.  

John Cole scanned the image carefully. He’d been head of the Secret Service detail at Wyndley Farm for several years, ever since Congress had appropriated funds to safeguard the nation’s greatest statesman who’d become synonymous with American’s fight against radical Islam. Prior to his assignment at Wyndley, SAC Cole had guarded the President, whoever that was at the time, for fifteen years. He’d personally overseen the Presidential security team. Many of the changes in security at the White House, especially since 9/11, had been planned and executed under his direction. If there was ever a warrior who knew security and security breaches, it was John Cole.  

But, in its own way, Wyndley Farm was more difficult to protect than the White House. He had a tough assignment. The estate was open and wooded and there were multiple ingress and egress sites where a single terrorist or an entire group of hostiles could slip in and out without detection. And, Congressman Adam Patrick Lee had some enemies. Adam Patrick Lee, better known as “the people’s politician,” was a son of Virginia. He was a descendant of the famous Lee family that included Light Horse Harry Lee and General Robert E. Lee who headed the Army of the South against Northern aggression during the Civil War. His estate in Northwestern Hanover County was over twelve hundred acres situated on the North Anna River. 

Wyndley Farm was located less than an hour from Richmond and two hours from Washington, DC. The Secret Service monitored a state of the art perimeter security system with internal and external video and audio surveillance. The residence had electronic keypad locks, sensors, and infrared technology. The interior of the house had a safe room. A six-foot hurricane fence topped with razor wire surrounded the property. The fence also had motion and vibration sensors.  Nevertheless, the vast estate was difficult to protect. The estate included hundreds of acres of forest, several residences, a horse-breeding facility, and multiple barns and outbuildings. Wyndley was a famous horse-breeding farm and multiple customers visited each day. Security was tight, but even in the best of worlds, John Cole knew the farm could easily come under attack. 

Tension was high in Secret Service headquarters. Several attacks on the farm had occurred in recent years, but had been diffused due to a lot of luck and the swift, expert action of the Secret Service. Just a few winters ago, the Secret Service had lost one of their very own. Seth Farmer had been killed by a terrorist seeking revenge against Adam Patrick Lee for an off-the-cuff comment he’d made to a reporter in New Orleans after the terrorist attack.

~~~

Run for Your Life

By Judith Lucci

I would image in getting a boxed set put together, it's a lot of work. Run for Your Life is an excellent book but it is not a medical thriller, and  Alexandra Destephano is not a character in the book, so followers of that series should be aware that this is, more, a political thriller that is well worth a recommendation in that genre...

I was reminded of John McCain who had a stellar reputation as I read about Congressman Adam Patrick Lee, who had been serving America well, in fighting  against fanatic Islam.  He also had a large estate that was the home of his family...  It also was a horse breeding farm with hundreds of acres. The Secret Service had been assigned to guard Wyndley Farm, since there had been a number of attempts by terrorists to seek revenge...or a trophy by their fellow countrymen...

The latter was what drove Syrian extremist Salmud Hafiz-- he wanted to garner praise and more importance and his drive allowed him to consider any type of action to do so, including murder. The author's decision to include American-born terrorists as characters, in my opinion, added a significant dimension to the story as it brings home exactly whether a religious conversion of these American's has actually occurred, or whether they were merely disgruntled and chose to make a break, thinking they would have a better life... Billy Jack Walters quickly realized his mistake...Hafiz was ordering them while he sat and watched and was expecting the digging under ground that Bill and his friend were doing, to go faster... When Billy complained and left, Hafiz made his first mistake by following him and leaving him in a provocative manner for officials to find... his head in a public restroom--dead!

The murder added to the fact that Secret Service equipment had already picked up vibration that had put them on higher alert... quickly changed what was happening to prepare... 

The personal element of the characters was key to the  quality of the book. Family and close friends were in danger and one of those was a newly adopted baby who was brought back to America after a battle...Now revenge was to be had and the baby was in danger plus those that had been in that combat were targeted for death. The storyline is complex, with edge-of-the seat tension as readers watch to know that, once again, good wins out over evil...

There was some concern that I had that the security team was too loose in the followup, implying they were not efficient, in order to provide a more dramatic tale. That is, I felt that the security agents were not given their due so that the main characters became the heroes. This was opinion based upon early detecting of vibration, without adequate followup... This led to a bit of credibility for me about the overall storyline. Nevertheless, the concept was consistent, well drawn out, and the final method for attack, as brought in by the author, made sense, was well written and provided a climatic ending that was quite satisfactory... Do check it out!


GABixlerReviews

Dr. Judith Lucci is a Wall Street Journal, USA Today and Amazon best-selling author. She's won awards for the Alexandra Destephano Medical Thriller and the Michaela McPherson "Two Sleuth's and a Dog" Crime fiction series. In 2017, Viral Intent (Book 3) Alexandra Destephano Series) was awarded a Gold Medal by Readers' Favorites for 'Best Political Thriller' as was her crime thriller 'The Case of Dr. Dude (Michaela McPherson #1) for a Gold Medal for 'Best Amateur Sleuth for 2017. She has contributed to four anthologies and collections and is the creator of Author 911: The Authors Guide to Writing and Medical Information. She is a registered nurse and college professor and holds graduate degrees from Virginia Commonwealth University and University of Virginia. Judith always like to connect with her readers and is available at judithlucciwrites@gmail.com

WE ARE HOLDING THE PRESIDENT HOSTAGE!!!

It is Always Time to Read Warren Adler...

But somehow this book caught my attention at this time...

“Win?”

 “Beat his ass.”

 She looked at him archly. He did not reflect the win. “So why so grim?” 

“Damn meeting with those relatives,” he muttered. The hostage problem was becoming a constant irritation, but he was managing it as he dealt with most problems. He had the ability to tuck things away in compartments, close their doors. Only this door refused to stay shut.

“Just be a good soldier,” she said.

“That’s the problem. A soldier fights.” He slipped into a T-shirt and pulled it over his chest with an angry gesture. Then he slid into his pants and pulled his belt tight around his waist. “They’re looking for it,” he said. 

“Maybe Harkins is right after all. Hell, he brags about his covert assets. Why not go in and secretly whack ’em. Nice clean surgery.” He stepped into his shoes. “All this crap about violence begetting violence. Morality bullshit.” “Hate to think of what you might dub immorality,” she said with a lilt, hoping to calm him.

 “Point is, we let them get away with it, no one’s safe. Especially us.” He turned to study her face.

“You think we’re really safe and snug in this place with all those Secret Service guys climbing in our soup?” He waved his arms. “And those cement barricades and walk-through detectors. A determined bastard would find a way.” 

Alluding to that possibility genuinely alarmed her. She turned from his gaze, deliberately hiding her fear from him. Under the circumstances, she had tried to follow a routine as normal as possible. But the idea of danger was never far from her thoughts. 

When Paul was a senator and they lived on Capitol Hill, he had bought her a little silver-plated .22-caliber pistol, which she had kept in a drawer next to her bed. She was alone a great deal and, although she detested the idea of it, she had not removed the gun from the house. Just in case, he had said. 

God forbid, she had thought. But she had kept it in its place. Worse, she had brought the pistol with her to the White House, where it had remained in the drawer next to her side of the bed, hardly a weapon to match the Secret Service battery of Uzi machine guns that surrounded them. 

“Times like this you almost wish you could be a dictator,” Paul said as he pulled up the knot of his tie. She knew he was trying to prepare himself mentally. 

“So what would you do differently?” she asked.

“I’d blast the hell out of everyone that aids and abets these bastards. Government, clans, financial supporters, families. Everyone.”

She remained silent, letting him vent himself. “Nixon wasn’t so dumb,” he mumbled. 

“Nixon?”

“Remember the Watergate tapes. He used to wish he were like the Mafia. They know how to get things done.” 

He kissed her perfunctorily on the forehead and stormed out of the room.

~~~

The President was frustrated--more hostages had been captured and held by this group or that. Always considered fanatic terrorists. Would it never stop? This time, however, by accident, a woman and child had been captured, when the intended target didn't show up and trouble began. The terrorists were pulling back but the woman and child, who had gone into the building's bathroom, was coming back out. They were grabbed and swiftly taken away. 

Thereafter, to protect their prize, they would drag the mother and child from place to place, sometimes even into vacant buildings, where they would be tied up and sat along the walls. The young boy was afraid, of course, but his mother knew something--she knew her family would not allow them to be hurt and would work immediately to free them. She spoke calmly to her son, ensuring him as best she could, though she, too, was afraid of what might happen in the meantime...

“I got good news and bad news,” he began. His eyes surveyed the faces around the table. He did not sit down, knowing that he was about to impart something momentous. He waited to create the perfect sense of drama.

 “Mafiosa,” he said, pausing for a long moment. “The man who has the President is Salvatore Padronelli, better known as the Padre, probably the most important don in this country. Second generation. A racket network of powerful proportions. The other three are his top capos, loyal to the death. One of them, the Canary, is a known murderer and hit man. The other, the Prune, has a rap sheet as long as your arm. The young one is Benjy Mustoni, known as the Kid, an ambitious enforcer. This caterer, poor bastard, was, as they say, given a deal he couldn’t refuse.”

“What the hell do they want?” “They want Maria and Joseph Michaels, the Padre’s only daughter and grandson.”

~~~

Maria and Joseph Michaels had been waiting for her husband when she was captured. But he had no power or ability to get her back--just as the familities of other hostages that were taken would be, without help from powerful people...

The President's staff had already been in negotiations, but nothing thus far had helped. Everybody knew the US policy: the government policy of never negotiating with terrorists, never giving in to their demands.  But that response was never satisfactory to relatives of the victims. The President had hated meeting with the families. They knew...and they knew he knew...that doing nothing was not an acceptable answer...

They found that out when that message was given to Maria and Joseph Michaels father. Padre Salvatore Patronelli, the most important don in America...

Because the leader of the Mafia was not willing to accept that America could do nothing. And he would ensure himself that he got his family back! By taking the President of America hostage and forcing action!

Sounds impossible, right? Well, not with Warren Adler's version of what the Mafia Don would do to save his family... It involved wearing explosives and walking right into a gala event sponsored by the President and his wife...

If you have read award-winning author Warren Adler before, you know already that what he writes is always unique, totally engrossing, and true-to-life. I enjoyed watching as the Mafia walks all over the Secret Service as they capture and then force the President and his wife into their living quarters, where they establish themselves for a visit, however long that would take! It was the President's wife that stole the show, in my opinion!

I highly recommend you take a break from the chaos happening in reality, and enjoy how things get done--Mafia style! Concerned about politics? Maybe even a must-read for you... it will lift you into an alternative fictional world that is a great place to be to watch the action! And good things do happen!

GABixlerReviews

Warren Adler is best known for The War of the Roses, his masterpiece fictionalization of a macabre divorce turned into the Golden Globe and BAFTA nominated dark comedy hit starring Michael Douglas, Kathleen Turner and Danny DeVito. In addition to the success of the stage adaptation of his iconic novel on the perils of divorce, Adler has optioned and sold film rights to more than a dozen of his novels and short stories to Hollywood and major television networks. Random Hearts (starring Harrison Ford and Kristen Scott Thomas), The Sunset Gang (starring Jerry Stiller, Uta Hagen, Harold Gould and Doris Roberts), Private Lies, Funny Boys, Madeline's Miracles, Trans-Siberian Express and his Fiona Fitzgerald mystery series are only a few titles that have forever left Adler's mark on contemporary American authorship from page to stage to screen. Learn more about Warren Adler at www.warrenadler.com.