Copyright 2010 by Lisa Garder. Published by Bantam Books, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

The story begins with the mass murder/suicide of his family by the father of Danielle Burton. Killed were Danielle’s mother and her two siblings – a brother and a sister. Danielle was 9 years old and she recalls her father standing in the doorway of her bedroom, drunk, calling to her, then putting a gun to his head and blowing his brains out.

Twenty-five years later Danielle is a pediatric psych nurse (no surprise there) who is still looking for an answer to the question: why didn’t he kill me? Why did he let me live to tell?

As the 25th anniversary of the murder/suicide approaches, there are back-to-back grisly “family annilihation” events which initially appear to be unrelated. But detective D.D. Warren sees some similarities. Both events – in which 12 people died – appeared to be cases in which the father murdered the family and then committed suicide. But there are forensic problems with that simple conclusion. Both scenes seem to have been staged. And both families had children with severe emotional/mental problems. The common denominator seens to be the psych unit in which Danielle works.

Warren is a bulldog who won’t settle for the simple answers. She keeps digging and starts to interview the staff at the psych unit, including Danielle. And no sooner do the interviews start than a child in the unit dies, apparently by hanging herself. A coincidence? It is the first child death the unit has ever experienced. And it, too, seems to have been staged. Danielle becomes a “person of interest” in the ivestigation. But there are others, too.

There is a strong current of repressed sexuality that runs through this book. Danielle and Warren both are desperately horny. And there are some hunky men who are more than willing to minister to their sexual needs – a hot male detective, a rich faith healer and a big, strong “gym coach” psych ward staff member. The repressed sexuality of Danielle is one of the key elements of the plot. Warren’s horniness is just comic relief.

I didn’t quite buy the motive for the murders, but Gardner is skillful in presenting the stories – both the original murders and the ones 25 years later – and she kept my interest.

I think I have read a D.D. Warren mystery before, but apparently I didn’t blog about it. Must have been before 2011 when I started blogging. But I enjoy the books that feature her.

7 out of 10.

Copyright 2005 by Belfry Holdings. Published by Bantam Dell, a division of Random House Inc, New York.

The eponymous broker in this case is disgraced and convicted Washington lobbyist Joel Backman. He is in prison, having served 6 years of a 20-year sentence (though the nature of his crime is a big vague), when he is suddenly pardoned by the outgoing President. His crime has something to do with some mysterious software that has been brought to him by 3 Pakistani hackers. The software controls an even more mysterious set of 9 spy satellites code-named “Neptune.” No one seems to know who launched these satellites or how they got into orbit without the defense and intelligence communities of the US, the UK and Russia not being aware of the launch. But there are lots of people who are upset that the satellites have been kidnapped by these hackers and, with Joel Backman’s assistance, are being peddled to the highest bidder. That high bid – in the vicinity of $1 billion – is never consummated as the 3 hackers and one of Backman’s associates are murdered before the deal goes down and Backman, in fear for his life, pleads guilty to the charges that have been leveled against him. He figures he is safer in prison than he is on the streets. And the software – on 4 hard disks – has disappeared.

Backman’s pardon was engineered by Teddy Maynard, the long-time head of the CIA, who wants him dead, thinking that the software will die with him. The CIA spirits the bewildered Backman to Italy where he desperately tries to assume the identity of a Canadian tourist. The CIA, which cannot legally assassinate him, wants him in a location where one of the other injured parties – Saudi Arabia (who was in line to pay the $1 billion ransom), Israel (who was determined to prevent Saudi Arabia from acquiring the Neptune satellites), Russia (who didn’t want any other country getting them) and China (who actually launched them and were pretty miffed that they had been stolen from them) – will be able to do the job for them. The CIA carefully controls Backman and, at the right moment – which happens to be when Maynard is fired – leaks his location to everyone. Backman has a very big target on his back.

It won’t surprise you to hear that Backman survives to the end of the book. How he does it is the interesting part of the plot. There is a minor romantic subplot. And the descriptions of the various Italian cities in which Backman lived are also interesting.

Grisham is a talented writer and I always enjoy his books. But this one doesn’t completely resolve Backman’s situation. It ends with Backman still being hunted by China. That was somewhat unsatisfying.

7 out of 10.