"Solid suspense thriller"
Mackie learned what a louse her husband was after she
discovered he was cheating on her and divorced her. The
housing development they were creating went into
foreclosure and the bank took possession of it leaving her
and her daughter Lianne barely able to afford the payments
on the model house. When she gets a notice from the IRS
saying she owes over $100,000, she finds out Kevin did some
financial maneuvering that made her liable for the bill. Her friend gives her the idea of stripping as a way of
getting back on her feet financially and the Tucson
resident travels to the border town of Aqua Fria where she
gets hired on as an exotic dancer at Buckaroo's. The owner
of the club Buck Samsanov also owns the local bank. He has
a scheme where one of his workers robs the place and he
gets the money back plus the insurance. Through a quirky
set of circumstances, Mackie winds up with the money,
Lianne's boyfriend is dead, and Kevin is kidnapped. A
crime writer looking for inspiration winds up in the middle
of the whole mess and manages to make matters worse. This suspense thriller is a memorable reading experience
due to the cast of characters who are unique and
believable. Peter Abrahams has a colorful writing style
and his prose is a work of art even with plenty of farcical
humor that lowers the tension level when the reader needs a
bit of relief from the almost non-stop action. Once again,
Mr. Abrahams proves he is one of the grandmasters of
suspense. Harriet Klausner
Reviewed by Harriet Klausner
Posted July 13, 2003
Summary"Mackie dreaded the mail." From this simple beginning,
Peter Abrahams opens the curtains on a mesmerizing world
down on the Mexican border, a world of complex and
passionate people whose ambitions will lead them on a
relentless collision course, a desert world that rises to
the mythic in Their Wildest Dreams. The suspense will grab
you and not let go, the surprises will shock you, but in
the end it will be the wonderful characters who linger in
your mind.
Characters like Mackie Larkin, a suburban mother desperate
for money, who finds she can earn it as a stripper; Kevin
Larkin, her ex-husband whose get-rich-quick schemes left
her with a mountain of debt, and who now dreams up an even
better one; Lianne, their beautiful, impulsive teenage
daughter, for whom almost anything, even bank robbery, is
possible; Jimmy Marz, the wrangler she loves, who gets a
dangerous onetime offer that could take him to the life
he's always wanted; Buck Samsonov, the charismatic strip-
club owner building a southwestern empire in the lawless
style of a 19th-century robber baron; Clay Krupsha, a
twenty-first-century captain of detectives in a border town
where no crime is what it seems; and Nicholas Loeb, a
struggling mystery writer whose encounter with an unstable
muse entangles him in a web of true crime more mysterious
than anything he imagined.
Utterly original, multilayered, and marked by the gripping
suspense, sharp wit, and fascinating psychological insights
for which Peter Abrahams has been acclaimed, here is a
major work—a riveting story of modern-day desperadoes
living their wildest dreams.
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