Above Ground

"Gerdes's nail-biting latest takes the reader into the edge-of-your-seat jaunt through Las Vegas's underbelly. A promising setup and intelligent prose complement the unpredictable plot and the twisty and satisfying conclusion. Though romance remains only an undercurrent throughout, romantic suspense readers looking for page-turning crime drama will enjoy this engrossing outing. Gerdes knows how to entertain." Prairie Book Review 

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Under the bright lights of the Strip, another world exists, one where dancers live beside professionals who can't afford a place to live—or don't want to be found—in one of the world's most famous cities. Corridors of sleeping areas are separated from communal food sections, heat and water allocated. It is the community of the water sewers, nearly three hundred miles of tunnels existing below Las Vegas.

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Attorney Shay Wilson has worked her way from a single wide trailer to UNLV where she graduated top of class, taking a job at the top trust and estates firm in town. One day, she will open her own firm, one proudly displaying her name.

But her dreams aren't forthcoming. New clients are taken by the law firms female managing partner, her rent has increased and her pride prevents her from asking her surrogate father for money. Uncompromising, she returns to bartending a few nights a week at the hottest club in town, new clients follow, as do designer clothes and a luxury apartment on the strip.

Yet as her success increases, so does the number of lawyers dying in roadway accidents. Stolen goods, money laundering and human trafficking are no longer jokes said at law school, but real activities. Falling in love with a detective who believes she may be a suspect, and avoiding a clothing executive convinced she is fencing his stolen products, she must keep her job, prove her innocence and learn the truth before she becomes one more dead attorney.