You know you're in smart hands in this latest thriller by Robert Ferrigno because his character, ex-undercover cop Val Duran, appears on the television quiz show Jeopardy. His reasoning? To catch the attention of a dangerous adversary named Junior. Val smiled, imagining Junior's expression when he saw the show. Junior taped every episode of Jeopardy. Half the dope dealers in south Florida were glued to the tube every afternoon, making bets, yelling at the contestants. Junior once shot out a forty-seven inch Mitsubishi over a missed answer. Junior also killed Val's former partner and threatened his only living relative, his grandmother, Grace. Val takes the old woman with him from Miami, and they hide out in Southern California. Here, he plots some serious revenge on the Floridian villain. Complicating matters are a beautiful, troubled marine biologist named Kyle Abbott and her seriously dysfunctional wealthy family. There's also a pair of killer extortionists after the Abbott family's fortune--a gorgeous sociopath named Jackie and a monolithic Gulf War Syndrome victim named Dekker. They all start out as very nasty genre stereotypes, but end up, thanks to Ferrigno's marvelously deft touch, as understandable and even likable human beings. There are even a couple of fresh insights into the overused landscape of Los Angeles: "Even before dawn the freeways buzzed with ambition. It made him homesick for the sultry indolence of Miami, cruising down the A1A, windows rolled down so he could smell the oleander blooming along the median."

Other Ferrigno titles include Dead Man's Dance and Dead Silent. --Dick Adler


From Publishers Weekly
As if invigorated by his move to a new publisher, Ferrigno (The House of Latitudes) has produced his best novel in years, a splendidly readable, cinematic thriller setAas is his wontAin Southern California and populated by mean drug dealers, beautiful surfers, "trust fund babies," "thugs on commission" and murderers for hire. Ferrigno's reluctant hero is Val Duran, an ex-cop: he's first seen in Miami, where Junior, a vengeful narcotraficante, has Val's oldest friend blown away before Val's eyes. Val flees to L.A., where he finds work as a technical adviser to "ultra-low budget action movies." Soon Val also finds Kyle Abbott, "smart and sinewy, a take-no-prisoners surfer" from a rich Laguna Beach family. Her arm brushes his, and it's love. Kyle's half-brother, Kilo, conspires with lawless, sadistic Jackie Hendricks and her Gulf War veteran sidekick, Dekker, to kill Kilo's stepmother, Kyle's mother. The ensuing Abbott family intrigue, and Junior's vendetta against Val, set up a landslide of betrayals, hard decisions, secret pacts and violent stratagems. Will Val's passion for Kyle expose her to Junior's wrath? Has Kilo fallen in love with Jackie? Will the dealers bring in the feds? Ferrigno introduces, and updates expertly, all the properties of SoCal noir: film, boats, drug runners, terminal illness, financial chicanery and underwater danger. The array of subplots and mixed motives should entice fans of Elmore Leonard and Ross Thomas. Ferrigno's complex edifice of wrongdoing rises to an ending that feels just right, and shows how far some racy characters will go in search of moneyAand for love. Agent, Mary Evans. Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.


The New York Times Book Review, Scott Veale
...the southern California atmospherics and razor-sharp dialogue are first-rate, and the villains are quirky and memorable.


The New York Times, Christopher Lehmann-Haupt
When Ferrigno is done, most of his characters are empty bags of skin, drifting off in the ether. Yet the reader is altogether entertained.


From AudioFile
In four short hours, John Glover transports the listener to the seedy underside of Ferrigno's imagination. Narrating this fast-paced mystery full of twists and turns, Glover makes each character fully discernible and believable. The story starts with the grisly murder of an undercover cop, and the listener is afforded a full view of the scene, and those that unfold as a result. Even though the majority of Ferrigno's characters are despicable thugs, Glover brings this coldhearted tale of deception and greed to life, keeping one thoroughly enmeshed. From start to finish, this whirlwind novel is a must-listen. H.L.S. (c) AudioFile, Portland, Maine


From Booklist
Val Duran, his undercover narco days behind him, is running from Junior, the only white-trash drug kingpin left in Miami. But what Val finds in Los Angeles proves every bit as lethal as Junior. First there's Kyle, a marine biologist whom Val falls hard for, and then there's her drunken stepbrother and his seriously bent girlfriend, who are plotting to murder Kyle's mother. Val lands in the middle of it all, with matters complicated by the arrival of Junior, who hopes to find time to meet Vanna White after he kills Val. This is one of those noir thrillers, like the film Body Heat, where you know the plot is going to turn you in circles, but the end result is never in doubt: the hero has it bad, and it's going to get worse. Ferrigno, author of The Horse Latitudes (1990), capably steers his plot around the corners and injects plenty of Hiaasen-type humor along the way. The ending, evoking The Maltese Falcon, hits just the right minor chord. Bill Ott


From Kirkus Reviews
A California playboy, a pair of homicidal hustlers, and a feisty but beautiful marine biologist all make trouble for an ex-cop who wants revenge on the southern-fried drug dealer who killed his partner. Departing from the four-book series featuring magazine journalist Quinn (Horse Latitudes,1990, etc.), Ferrigno comes up with Val Duran, a likable, wisecracking, Elmore Leonardstyle action hero. White-trash Miami druglord Junior Mayfield suspects that Duran just might be an undercover cop, though the hired goons who torture and murder Vals partner cant get him to confirm it. Duran dispatches the goons, then flees to L.A., where he gets a job acting as a police-procedures consultant on some cheap Hollywood action films. He encourages Junior to try to find him by appearing as a guest on JeopardyJunior's favorite TV game showthen using Junior's name as the wrong response. Meanwhile, Charles ``Kilo'' Abbott III, a dissolute southern California playboy, turns to his advantage what might have been a brutal robbery by red-haired, sadistic femme fatale Jackie and her masochistic muscleman, Dekker, by hiring them to murder his stepmother Gwen, who stands in the way of Kilo inheriting his doddering father's millions. Doing his laundry on a Saturday night, who should Val meet but Kyle Abbott, a gorgeous, sexually aggressive marine biologist (and stepsister to Kilo) who just might be the woman he's been looking for all his life. Ferrigno tangles subplots as these numerous string-pullers run afoul of each other. Deliberately skewed dialogue and screwball plot twists tend to undermine the sense of menace that would make the requisite violence and derring-do believable. It matters little, in the end, that Duran's schemes have only made it easier for others to involve him in theirs. Tightly written but uneven, with an uncomfortable mix of over-the-top comic plotting and tough-guy machismo in a surrealistic SoCal setting. -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.


Review
Praise for Robert Ferrigno

"Ferrigno can make you afraid, he can make you laugh, and he can keep you turning the pages."


"A hard-swinging Southern California writer . . . Ferrigno has a gift for creating confrontations of high impact, and his dialogue bites hard. . . . Like other inheritors of the Hammett-Chandler-Ross MacDonald private-eye tradition, Ferrigno balances the tough doings with a strong sense of moral outrage and compassion."


"Every few years another writer is described as the next Raymond Chandler, but Robert Ferrigno may be the real thing. [He] doesn't craft elegant thrillers that peak precisely where you figure they're going to; his just keep blowing up in your face. You can't second-guess Ferrigno or predict where he's going."


"Ferrigno's crime plotting is terrific, but what's most appealing is his photographic eye for L.A. life."



Review
Praise for Robert Ferrigno

"Ferrigno can make you afraid, he can make you laugh, and he can keep you turning the pages."


"A hard-swinging Southern California writer . . . Ferrigno has a gift for creating confrontations of high impact, and his dialogue bites hard. . . . Like other inheritors of the Hammett-Chandler-Ross MacDonald private-eye tradition, Ferrigno balances the tough doings with a strong sense of moral outrage and compassion."


"Every few years another writer is described as the next Raymond Chandler, but Robert Ferrigno may be the real thing. [He] doesn't craft elegant thrillers that peak precisely where you figure they're going to; his just keep blowing up in your face. You can't second-guess Ferrigno or predict where he's going."


"Ferrigno's crime plotting is terrific, but what's most appealing is his photographic eye for L.A. life."

FROM THE PUBLISHER

It opens with a killing on a south Florida beach. Val Duran, an undercover cop, is forced to witness the murder of his partner, which has been arranged by a drug kingpin called Junior. In retaliation, Val kills two of Junior's men, but the score is far from settled. Val quits Florida fast and doesn't stop until he reaches Hollywood. He ends up doing stunt work in B movies, but his real life turns out to be much more hazardous: He's fallen hard for Kyle Abbott, a marine biologist with an attitude, a pedigree, and a take on nature ("survival is all about speed and cunning, camouflage and adaptability") that would have forewarned Val had she not completely disarmed his habitual protective paranoia. Which means that he doesn't see Junior coming until it's almost too late. And, even more dangerously, Val doesn't notice how fast he's sinking into the morass of Kyle's deadly, dysfunctional family: Her dissolute stepbrother and his dangerous girl friend are planning to forcibly wrest the purse strings to Daddy's fortune from the control of overbearing Stepmom. Val might be able to keep himself out of Junior's line of fire, but he doesn't see any way to help Kyle without dragging her directly into it.

FROM THE CRITICS

Christopher Lehmann-Haupt - The New York Times

What is distinctive about Mr. Ferrigno's gripping prose is that as usual it is...set in a natural world whose appeal he makes the reader vividly feel....Is this a world, then, where every prospect pleases, and only man is vile? Hardly....When Mr. Ferrigno is done, most of his characters are empty bags of skin, drifting off in the ether. Yet the reader is altogether entertained.

Scott Veale

For the most part...the interplay of comedy and extreme violence keeps Heartbreaker humming along, even when the excessive plot twists threaten to cut off oxygen to what is otherwise a pleasing thriller. —The New York Times Book Review

Library Journal

A former undercover cop at war with a drug lord finds that the new love of his life is in danger.

AudioFile - Heather L. Savelle

In four short hours, John Glover transports the listener to the seedy underside of Ferrigno's imagination. Narrating this fast-paced mystery full of twists and turns, Glover makes each character fully discernible and believable. The story starts with the grisly murder of an undercover cop, and the listener is afforded a full view of the scene, and those that unfold as a result. Even though the majority of Ferrigno's characters are despicable thugs, Glover brings this coldhearted tale of deception and greed to life, keeping one thoroughly enmeshed. From start to finish, this whirlwind novel is a must-listen. H.L.S. ￯﾿ﾽ AudioFile, Portland, Maine

Kirkus Reviews

A California playboy, a pair of homicidal hustlers, and a feisty but beautiful marine biologist all make trouble for an ex-cop who wants revenge on the southern-fried drug dealer who killed his partner. Departing from the four-book series featuring magazine journalist Quinn (Horse Latitudes,1990, etc.), Ferrigno comes up with Val Duran, a likable, wisecracking, Elmore Leonard￯﾿ﾽstyle action hero. White-trash Miami druglord Junior Mayfield suspects that Duran just might be an undercover cop, though the hired goons who torture and murder Val's partner can't get him to confirm it. Duran dispatches the goons, then flees to L.A., where he gets a job acting as a police-procedures consultant on some cheap Hollywood action films. He encourages Junior to try to find him by appearing as a guest on Jeopardy—Junior's favorite TV game show—then using Junior's name as the wrong response. Meanwhile, Charles "Kilo" Abbott III, a dissolute southern California playboy, turns to his advantage what might have been a brutal robbery by red-haired, sadistic femme fatale Jackie and her masochistic muscleman, Dekker, by hiring them to murder his stepmother Gwen, who stands in the way of Kilo inheriting his doddering father's millions. Doing his laundry on a Saturday night, who should Val meet but Kyle Abbott, a gorgeous, sexually aggressive marine biologist (and stepsister to Kilo) who just might be the woman he's been looking for all his life. Ferrigno tangles subplots as these numerous string-pullers run afoul of each other. Deliberately skewed dialogue and screwball plot twists tend to undermine the sense of menace that would make the requisite violence and derring-do believable. It matters little, inthe end, that Duran's schemes have only made it easier for others to involve him in theirs. Tightly written but uneven, with an uncomfortable mix of over-the-top comic plotting and tough-guy machismo in a surrealistic SoCal setting. .

WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING