Deadly Defiance, A Stan Turner Mystery #10

A young mother complains to Stan that she’s been abandoned by her husband, left penniless, and deeply in debt. Maureen Thompson is livid with her husband and suggest she’d be better off if he were dead, so she could collect on his sizeable life insurance policy. Stan cautions her not to think in those terms and, before she leaves, promises to develop a strategy for effectively dealing with her seemingly unsurmountable problems. Several weeks later Maureen calls Stan from the City Jail where she’s been arrested for the alleged murder of her husband. Since Paula is between murder cases, Stan assigns the case to her. She is elated with the assignment until she finds out Rodney Thompson isn’t her first husband to fall victim to a seven-inch ice pick.

While Paula is busy trying to prove Maureen Thompson isn’t the Ice Pick Killer, Stan and Jodie try to help an illegal Hispanic woman obtain redress for the murder of her husband at the hands of a sweatshop owner with ties to a Mexican drug cartel. It’s a dangerous case so Stan and Jodie team up with the Dallas Police and the FBI to attempt to bring the abusive employer to justice. But just when they think they have Icaro Melendez on the ropes he strikes back with a vengeance making Stan and Jodie wish they’d never taken on the case. But there is no going back now, so they press on, praying they’ll survive a final confrontation with the ruthless cartel.