Book Review
of Project Moses sponsored by Virtual Book Tours
Giveaway – There will be a grand prize
giveaway during the tour for 4 signed paperbacks.
Genre: Mystery Thriller
Publisher: Enzo Publications
Release Date: January 23, 2012
Book
Synopsis:
After
several years of zealous investigative reporting on the East Coast, reporter
Enzo Lee is enjoying his new, quiet life in San Francisco, churning out light,
fluffy features for the local paper. Lee adores his North Beach apartment and
days filled with running, tai chi, great food, and women. Life is good.
So when
Lee’s boss orders him to cover the mysterious deaths of a local judge and
prosecutor, he is flushed out of his comfort zone and thrust into a story that
is both exhilarating and dangerous.
With
help from the judge’s attractive niece Sarah Armstrong, Lee begins to uncover a
bioterrorism scandal. The perpetrators will kill to conceal and Lee and Sarah
soon become their prime targets. Will the pair evade their hunters and piece
together the story before time runs out?
Or will
the government agents and Silicon Valley titans who are the masterminds behind
the scandal stop the pair and add them to the list of victims?
From
Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Robert B Lowe.
Kirkus
Reviews describes Project Moses as
“a thriller with an ideal fusion of wile and wit”.
Author Information:
Robert B. Lowe is a Pulitzer-prize winning
author whose fiction is based in San Francisco, his adopted home. His past
experiences – a 12-year career in investigative journalism and a Harvard Law
School degree – enable him to write gripping mystery thrillers in both the
legal and journalistic fields. Lowe draws his inspiration from John Grisham,
Dick Francis and Lee Childs and adds his own San Francisco twist. Readers will
enjoy his references to the city’s landmarks such as Chinatown, North Beach and
Pacific Heights and the Bay area’s foodie culture. When Lowe isn’t writing he
enjoys a day at the golf course and spending time with his wife and daughters.
The Author can be contacted at Twitter Author Website Author e-mail
Excerpt:
Exodus 11:1
“And
the LORD said unto Moses, Yet will I bring one plague more upon Pharaoh, and
upon Egypt; afterwards he will let you go hence…”
Chapter 1
TALL AND SLENDER with well-coiffed silver hair
that touched her shoulders, Judge Miriam Gilbert was a handsome woman with
sparkling blue eyes who still attracted admiring looks from men, even if the
looks were somewhat less carnal than in the past.
At the age of 52, after a decade as a San Francisco Municipal Court
Judge, Miriam Gilbert had long ago developed the most important quality
required for a jurist charged with resolving the petty crimes and minor civil
disputes that filled her courtroom – infinite patience.
But, she was struggling today to remain stoic behind the particle
board and formica bench at the front of the courtroom. She watched the
middle-aged juror twist her fat hands until the knuckles were red and swollen.
The woman shifted uncomfortably in her seat as she scanned the people sitting
around her in the jury box.
The juror was about Judge Gilbert’s age but the resemblance ended
there. She wore a blue, vaguely nautical dress at least two sizes and 15 years
too young for her. Her face was loose and malleable, shifting back and forth
between fear and disdain as she looked at her fellow jurors.
Raising her hand like a child in class, the woman fought her sobs
as she spoke through lips painted blood red.
“I am not crazy!” she said. She took two deep breaths. “They kept
yelling and yelling at me. And I am not going to change my mind.”
“He is innocent! That one did not prove his case.”
Her face trembling, the juror jabbed a lethal-looking fingernail at the
prosecutor just beyond the jury box.
Orson Adams stared back at his accuser, removed his tortoise
shell-rimmed glasses and frowned.
The muscles around Judge Gilbert’s left eye twitched slightly. She
didn’t mind so much that the hung jury was going to waste four days of trial
time devoted to a minor case. That was par for the course. What bothered her
was a headache that had started about the time the bailiff knocked on the door
to Judge Gilbert’s chambers and said: “They want to come out. I think they’ve
run out of names to call each other.”
The judge cleared her throat, a signal that the histrionics and
squabbling that had emanated from the jury box for the past ten minutes were
over. She stared at the empty notepad in front of her for a few seconds before
looking up.
“It is apparent to me that this jury will not reach a unanimous
verdict,” she said. “They have deliberated for two days - as much time as it
took for the state and the defense to present their cases. Therefore, I declare
a mistrial.”
“The prosecution will inform the Court within one week whether the
state intends to retry this case. I thank the jury for its efforts. I know it
has taken much of your time to be here and that the last two days have not been
easy.” Judge Gilbert made it a point to nod in the jury’s direction.
Then, she looked over at the defendant, an almost emaciated young
man with dirty blond hair tied in a ponytail. He sat beside his attorney, a
corpulent man wearing dark-blue pinstripes, pink tie and a forced smile that
looked more like a snarl.
“Mr. Warrington will remain free on bond,” she said.
An hour later, the lawyers, jurors and courthouse staff had joined
the evening traffic jam. With her black robe now hanging in the closet of her
chambers, Judge Gilbert wore a long-sleeved white blouse and a pleated beige
skirt as she settled behind her large desk stained yellow to bring out the wood
grain through the heavily polished sheen. Behind her were volumes of California
cases, bound in blue leather. A cup of Misty Mint tea sat on her right, hot and
steaming. Next to it lay two capsules of Darvon painkiller. The headache was
worse. It now seemed to fan outward from the center of her brain to her scalp.
Judge Gilbert looked over the assorted papers laying on her desk.
She picked up a large envelope that she had opened in the morning. It was teal
blue and embossed with a logo in darker blue along the left side that she had
never seen before. It was a rising spiral with flowers and bunches of grapes
hanging from it.
Judge Gilbert reached into the envelope and pulled out a yellow
rose that had been pressed flat. She held it to her nose, inhaled and was
rewarded with the aroma of cinnamon. She was reminded of hot apple cider and
sweet potato pie.
She set the rose on the desk and grabbed her letter opener, a gift
from a former law clerk. She inserted it under the flap of another envelope and
tore it open with a satisfying rip. She skimmed the letter inside. Then, Judge
Gilbert turned to the next envelope sitting in the tray on the corner of her
desk.
The next morning the body of Judge Miriam Gilbert was still at her
desk when her law clerk went into her chambers. Her head lay on the desktop,
eyes staring at a blank wall. Her silver hair was stained brown where it lay in
a puddle of cold tea.
***
ORSON ADAMS WAS more than a little miffed when he was assigned the
Warrington case. After three years of prosecuting crime, he had enough
seniority to avoid the dog shit cases. Here was a burglary with nothing
actually taken, just forced entry with intent to steal. The fact that the case
had ended in a hung jury that afternoon was the capper. What a colossal waste
of his time.
Adams hadn’t handled a case in Municipal Court for a year. Being
back there the past four days made him wonder if he was spinning his wheels as
a prosecutor. He had progressed rapidly through the District Attorney’s office.
Being one of a handful of black prosecutors in the office didn’t hurt. Still,
maybe it was time to get out on his own. Spread his wings and go private. He
could defend the scumbags he had been putting behind bars, pocket the big fees
and buy a house in Tiburon.
Adams rounded the elevated indoor track at the Run N Racquet Club
for the 33rd time. He was in excellent shape at 30 and, with his tailored
suits, Adams cut a dashing figure in the DA’s office. He frowned again at the
memory of the matronly juror who had blown the whole goddamn trial and blamed
him…HIM for failing to prove the case.
“Bleeding heart hag,” he muttered to himself.
He should have guessed that the middle-aged juror might take a
maternal, boys-will-be-boys attitude toward Warrington. The ages were right.
During jury selection, Adams hadn’t even tried to inquire into whether the
juror had any children. Adams had found that older women usually make great
jurors for the prosecution. He wasn’t accustomed to worrying about them being
on the jury unless they wore peace medallions or were former Berkeley radicals.
Adams finished his 44th and final lap and slowed to walk two more,
just to warm down and keep the lactic acid from pooling in his legs. He stopped
for a moment at the railing overlooking the racquetball courts.
Down below on Court One, surrounded by glass on two sides, a pair
of attractive blonds wearing headbands and Spandex tights and tops in purples
and pinks were grunting enthusiastically as they pounded a blue ball around the
court.
The smaller woman was named Diana. She had a gorgeous body, buxom
yet athletic. She was a fixture at the club and invariably attracted a crowd of
male spectators as she and her playing partners sweated through their skintight
outfits.
Adams made his way downstairs to the men’s locker room. He showered
and stuffed his running clothes back into a Nike gym bag. He put his tie in his
coat pocket and flung the jacket over his shoulder.
Adams walked in the breeze across the four lanes of Folsom Street.
It was balmier than usual and the wind carried the faintest smell of the ocean.
The scent made him hungry and his mind shifted to restaurants. Last night they
had eaten Thai. Maybe Diana would like the new South of Market restaurant, the
one that specialized in seafood cooked on a gigantic rotisserie imported from
Naples or somewhere. How did they cook fish on that thing, anyway? Wire
baskets?
When he heard the engine gunning behind him, Adams
barely had time to turn his head before the black pickup slammed into him.
Book Review:
Think Pelican Brief, Conspiracy
Theory, and Outbreak combined into one book.
A once burned reported doing a snarky fluff column gets asked to cover a
police officer’s death and then a judge’s death. The niece of said judge takes umbrage with
his statements about her aunt. While
watching her walk across the street outside his office, he sees a van try to
run her down. This starts him on a journey
that will take him from Coast to Coast, running from everyone from the Rogue
government agents down. As the body
count rises, so do the stakes.
At first, I thought this story would
be similar to the Pelican Brief or Outbreak, but this story stands on its own
against others in the genre. The tension
stretches deliciously from one chapter to the next building to the brilliant
climax. My only niggle of problem with
the story was that the ending was so tragic.
While I appreciate a tragic ending, in this case it seemed like a low
blow.
I give this story 4 out of 5
clouds. A good read.
This
product or book may have been distributed for review; this in no way affects my
opinions or reviews.
Thank you for hosting Robert today :) Great review!
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