Intent to Harm
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- $4.99
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- $4.99
Publisher Description
Imagine losing what you love most.
Don’t say I didn’t warn you . . .
The woman gives her name as Betty. No last name. No phone number. Just a meeting place – a deserted, wooded park on the outskirts of Lake Tahoe. The retainer is a healthy one. The one condition – come alone. San Francisco attorney Kali O’Brien understands client confidentiality, but something about Betty’s urgent request has her a little spooked. Whatever secrets the woman is hiding must be very incriminating – and very dangerous – to demand such privacy.
But Kali never gets that information. The moment Betty meets with Kali, she’s shot and killed by a sniper, and Kali barely escapes with her life. She’s left with more questions than answers. Why did the woman go to such lengths to ensure secrecy? What is important enough to protect at such cost? And then there’s the last thing Betty every said – a cryptic phrase that leads Kali to another unsolved case – the mysterious disappearance of a woman eight years earlier.
As Kali get closer to discovering the truth, a killer is right behind her, anticipating her every move, waiting for her to play into his very lethal hands . .
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Jacobs's sixth Kali O'Brien thriller (after Cold Justice) starts with a bang San Francisco attorney O'Brien is shot and nearly killed in a remote park near Lake Tahoe but rapidly loses momentum as a mountain of red herrings pile up. O'Brien meets a mysterious new client at the park, but before she can learn anything about her case, the two women are attacked and the client is killed. When O'Brien is released from the hospital with a painful shoulder wound, she sets out to investigate, despite a daunting lack of clues. Her client, Betty Arnold, was a middle-aged woman who lived a quiet life. The only interesting bit of information O'Brien can glean about her is that her niece, a young schoolteacher named Faith Foster, was kidnapped eight years before and is still missing. A newspaper clipping discovered in Arnold's knitting bag leads O'Brien to Faith, but O'Brien is being tailed by a ruthless hit man who will do anything to wipe out Faith and finish the job he botched eight years ago. The identity of the hit man is made clear from the beginning chapters narrated from his perspective provide some comic relief but O'Brien is unable to pinpoint his employer until the very end. In an attempt to produce a sense of urgency, Jacobs introduces some wild cards a high-profile doctor, a young Hispanic scapegoat, a Chinese police detective but as each subplot fizzles, the pace slows to a crawl. The hasty, underdeveloped conclusion will leave readers scratching their heads and may make them wary of following along on O'Brien's next adventure. Author tour.