The Best Bad Dream
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
A fed’s debt to a sexy snitch leads to a darkly funny nightmare of double-crosses and sinister motives: “Ward is simply the best” (Michael Connelly).
All FBI Agent Jack Harper wants is a heavenly vacation in Baja: sand, surf, and fishing. Then he gets a phone call from hell: it’s his for-lack-of-a-better-word girlfriend, Michelle Wu. The hot con-artist, and irresistible chop-shop queen needs Jack’s help in finding her kidnapped sister, a nurse working a posh Taos health spa for seniors. Michelle’s got an idea who’d gain from it: a biker she wronged who’s got a rotten sweet tooth for revenge. But Jack must be nuts to think the case would end with a homicidal gang called Sons of Satan. It’s just beginning, and where it leads Jack, his partner Oscar Hidalgo, and Michelle is down a dark road with so many sharp turns and twists it could snap a neck.
So buckle up for The Best Bad Dream by the PEN West prize-winning “heir to the pulp fiction tradition” (BookReporter.com). And we dare you: “Name another novel that starts out with New Age satire and winds up with a bizarro oldster version of Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Ward’s no-holds-barred style and fevered imagination will . . . hit the spot for a special kind of bent reader” (Booklist).
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In Ward's disappointing sequel to 2009's Total Immunity, Los Angeles FBI agent Jack Harper has just started a two-week vacation. While attending a lacrosse game that his 15-year-old son, Kevin, is playing in at Culver City High, he receives a phone call from informant and love interest Michelle Wu. Michelle, who's on holiday in Santa Fe, N.Mex., with her sister, Jennifer, is in a panic Jennifer has disappeared and Michelle fears her sister's been kidnapped. Will Jack come to the rescue? Since Michelle once saved his life, Jack can't refuse. In New Mexico, he becomes entangled in a bizarre conspiracy involving biker gangs, sexual slavery, and a Santa Fe lodge specializing in rejuvenation therapies for the elderly. Meanwhile, back in L.A., Kevin runs into trouble. At points, the over-the-top characters and contrived action give the story an almost cartoonish feel. Fans of Ward's Red Baker and Four Kinds of Rain may feel as if they're in a bad dream.