Love & Taxes
A Novel series -- Coming Soon
Book 1: Straw Man
straw man
noun
1) a person whose importance or function is only nominal, as to cover another's activities; an intermediary for a transaction; a person used as a cover for some dubious plan or enterprise.
2) a weak or innocuous person; a person of little substance; a man who cannot be relied upon.
Officer Robert Bonnett has spent his life waiting for things to happen instead of making them happen. Fresh off a failed stint in management, Robert just wants to settle in and figure out where his life is headed.
Then he's assigned to work with beautiful but distant Laila Patel. And then, frustrated by politics and bureaucracy and the waste that surrounds him, Robert does some things he wouldn’t normally do, things that lead to him risking twenty years in federal prison.
But that’s only if Jack Prince doesn’t find Robert first. Jack has stolen $10 million dollars and left dozens of innocent people homeless and broke, and he doesn’t appreciate Robert and Laila sniffing around. But they’ve got less than a week to track down the money, a week where their love–and their lives–are on the line. After that, Jack will be free and clear, sailing his yacht to Cabo San Lucas across the shattered lives of his victims.
And Laila’s abusive husband isn’t happy about her working with Robert either. If Jack Prince doesn’t manage to kill Robert, he might.
And then there are the ubiquitous dangers at the federal building where they work, with bomb scares, sniper threats, and an Internal Investigator who thinks Robert has done something wrong. But is it the little wrong he knows about, or the bigger wrong?
Robert doesn’t know what will catch up to him first. He just hopes it doesn’t all come crashing down until after he gets Jack Prince. Justice may be on Robert’s side, but unfortunately nothing else is, including time. And whatever happens, he can’t escape his own conscience. Does what he’s done make him just as bad as Jack Prince? Or do his motives justify his crimes?
Contact:Mythicpicnic@yahoo.com
Mark Finnemore has a story included in an upcoming "young adult" anthology entitled Spirited, which is donating all proceeds to 826 National, a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting students ages 6 - 18 with their writing skills, and to helping teachers inspire their students to write.
