"exhilarating thriller"

In Port Leo, Texas the doctors have given his beloved father, who raised Judge Whit Mosely and his five brothers, four months to live. As such Whit wants his mother Ellen, who abandoned the seven Mosely males decades ago, to apologize for what she did to all of them before his dad dies. He hires private investigator Harry Chyme to make inquiries though his father did just that when the trail was warm, with no success.

Harry thinks out of the box tracing- Ellen to Montana where she had run off to with a bank embezzler. Then he traces her in Detroit where she cut a deal with the Bellini mob, who relocated with her to Houston. As Whit confronts Ellen, he becomes embroiled in a mob deal involving a five- million-dollar Miami connection and double crosses that test his moral system to the core. Will he choose to protect the person who deserted him or will he opt to obey his conscience. He is encouraged to do so by Claudia Salazaar, the woman he loves.

CUT AND RUN is an exhilarating thriller that runs on two levels. First there is the mob scenario with its double dealings in which Ellen is in the middle. Then there is Whit's ethical dilemma even when murder influences the equation. Thus the audience receives a powerful novel that will add to Jeff Abbott's growing reputation for suspense.

Harriet Klausner

Reviewed by Harriet Klausner
Posted October 16, 2003

Summary

In Jeff Abbott's third electrifying thriller featuring Whit Mosley, the Texas judge investigates his own past in a harrowing search for the mother who abandoned his family years ago. What he finds is a nightmare of double-crosses, vicious schemers, murder, and a conniving woman who may be plotting the cruelest betrayal of all...