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Overview
A jogger falls to her death from a bridge in a Philadelphia park. A teenager dies when his bike collides with a bus. A young woman is found dead in a downtown office building. All the deaths can be explained. None results in the prosecution of a murderer. Friendly, charming insurance man Jim Hartman has devised the perfect crimes." "He picks his victims for their youth and future earning potential. Because they are young, their deaths are worth millions in lawsuits for damages. The government and large corporations pay out huge amounts to grieving families, with Hartman taking a large but secret cut. No one suspects the scheme. No one but George Gray, a disillusioned reporter turned crime-fighting vigilante." "Gray has his own brand of justice. When honest, good people have no chance of recovering the money they are owed, he'll use a dangerous form of blackmail to make sure the guilty pay. Determined to get vengeance and justice for a friend who has been cheated of his late wife's life insurance, Gray suspects some kind of fraud. It's fraud, all right, but much, much more." "Following a treacherous path of discovery, one that leads him to a brilliant woman lawyer with a riveting story of her own, Gray learns the horrific truth of Hartman's crimes, even as he and Hartman move toward their inevitable showdown.Editorials
Library Journal
Harper s latest thriller in the George Gray series reveals nasty life insurance agent Jim Hartman, who steals his clients premiums, stages their accidental deaths, then convinces their families to file wrongful death suits and pockets a sizable share of the settlements. Hartman s scheme seems foolproof until ex-reporter George Gray appears. Gray is looking for answers behind a friend s denied life insurance claim and starts the investigation with his friend s agent, Hartman. What results is a quick read that displays inside knowledge of both investigative reporting and the insurance industry. Although part of a series, this novel can stand on its own. For larger fiction collections. Jeff Ayers, Seattle P.L. Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.Kirkus Reviews
The whole insurance racket is one big, unregulated scam, Harper notes—and he's got some unpleasant facts to back him up—but smiling Jim Hartman, of Bethlehem Casualty & Life, is running a series of scams that go even further. Hartman pushes high-premium burial insurance to ghetto moms, cancels low-risk policies without notifying his clients and pockets years' worth of premiums, and buys off the lawsuits brought against him by the few bereaved relatives he can't con into accepting his sad tale of how the departed must have cancelled the policy or borrowed against it himself. His latest con is to murder victims whose deaths can be disguised as accidents and then goad their estates into launching wrongful-death suits that will include a payout for him. One day, Philadelphia reporter-turned-avenger George Gray (Final Fear, 1993, etc.) implicates Hartman in the refusal to pay off the insurance claim of his late ex-lover Karen Murphy, and from that point on, it's a fight to the death, as Gray patiently assembles evidence against Hartman—not so he can get him arrested and tried, but so that he can extort a fat settlement for the families Hartman preyed on—and Hartman calmly calls Gray's bluffs, reveals the patsy he's set up to take the rap for him, and reminds Gray how good an investment life insurance would have been for the nuisances who thought they could cross swords with him before. Except for some occasional ill-advised foreshadowing, Harper's businesslike prose, more John Lutz than John D. MacDonald, makes the whole fairy tale even more chilling. You'll be demanding receipts from your own insurance agent.Book Details
Published
September 1, 2001
Publisher
Mystery Vault Inc
Pages
232
Format
Paperback
ISBN
9781931755054