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Overview
From The Bone Collector to the brand-new James Bond masterwork, “there is no thriller writer today like Jeffery Deaver” (San Jose Mercury News)!\
Hard-living Hollywood location scout John Pellam found the perfect backwater Missouri town for shooting a retro gangster film. But when real bullets leave two people dead and one cop paralyzed, Pellam—an unwitting witness to the brutal hits—is suddenly the South’s most wanted man. The feds and local police want him to talk. Mob enforcers want him silenced. And a mysterious blonde just wants him. Trapped in a town full of sinister secrets and deadly deceptions, Pellam must focus on facing down a killer before his own story fades to black.
Hard luck, the bottle and a prison stretch ended John Pellam's promising directorial career--and now the ex-Hollywood insider has been reduced to location scout. But while scouting locations for a shoot-em-up in Maddox, Missouri, he gets perilously close to a real riverfront rub-out. William Jefferies is the pseudonym for Jeffrey Deaver. Original.
Synopsis
Hollywood location scout John Pellam thought the backwater town of Maddox, Missouri, would be perfect for an upcoming Bonnie and Clyde-style film. But real bullets leave two people dead and one cop paralyzed. Now the feds and local police want him to talk. Mob enforcers want him silenced. And a mysterious blonde just wants him.
Publishers Weekly
Movie location scout John Pellam is working in Maddox, Mo., when he goes out for a case of beer. This innocuous outing lands him in big trouble when his beer collides with the door of a parked car whose occupants subsequently commit a rubout. Next thing he knows, Pellam finds himself being pursued by the killers, who fear Pellam can identify them; by the local police, because a cop was shot during the rub-out; and by the FBI, who think the murder was related to a racketeering case. Vincent Gaudia, the man who was killed, had turned witness against his boss, Peter Crimmins, who is wanted on RICO charges. The official bag of tricks used by the feds and police against Pellam includes interrogation, threats of prosecution on false charges, disruption of Pellam's life and business and hints that the film he's working on could be shut down. Jefferies ( Shallow Graves ) adds a twist that gives Pellam the last laugh while he makes his point about the baseness of the so-called good guys. Although the book works technically, reading a tale so replete with unpleasantness is still no picnic. (July)