The female lead is Genevieve Spenser, a New York attorney who is dispatched to one of her firm’s major clients to get some papers signed on her way southward to Costa Rica for a vacation. Genevieve is noteworthy for her naivety and self-absorption, the former trait being very uncommon for New York lawyers who survive.

The client Genevieve is sent to see is presently residing on his yacht.. Billionaire Harry Van Dorn, who in a very simple minded fashion, has constructed a Rule of Seven Terrorist Attacks that apparently will make him more billions. Details of these pending attacks are never really part of the story.

Madame Isobel Lambert is the head of The Committee, a European conglomerate fighting terrorists who has learned of the plot. They employ Peter Jensen and he has been set up as Van Dorn’s major domo to uncover the details of the targets and to foil the plot.

Again, this is barely touched upon. Upon arrival, Genevieve is easily maneuvered into spending the night on the boat and wakes up to find it merrily sailing away. Peter stages a mutiny, made easier by the fact that he has managed to replace most of Van Dorn’s loyals. Peter tells Genevieve pretty quickly that he will kill her within forty-eight hours; I guess because she knows too much and a “good guy” killer who gives an innocent victim a timetable requires a certain suspension of disbelief.  It varies a bit when both are nearly blown up and they are on the run, each in a different direction for a time.

Little effort is made for place or venue description, which could have added interest to the story. Instead where Peter meets Genevieve, it is the same discourse about how soon she will die, etc. Harry is far too simplistic a character to have ever made billions, or if inherited, to have hung on to them. Madame is always too stern and, like Peter, too cold and callow to be believable. The characters never flesh out from first meeting and 360 pages is a long time to sing the same song.

My lasting impression will be repetitive discourse among one-dimensional naïve, simple, or cruel people that one cannot bring oneself to care about.

--Thea Davis