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Take one casino owner who is so ruthless he and his organization were kicked out of Vegas and landed in Jersey. Add a twist of pent-up revenge, a dash of caution, and a soupçon of humor and you have one heck of a cocktail that will keep the pages turning. Annabelle Conroy, beautiful, careful, and focused on revenging the death of her mother, brings together three individuals with 'special' skills to help her. One of the three is Leo, a long-time friend of her family. The other two are Tony and Freddy. Freddy is a pro but Tony is new at con schemes though an expert on technology. Like a kid in a candy store, he is greedy and never thinks of the consequences. He discovers the errors of his ways – but unfortunately not soon enough. In the quiet recess of a vault in the Rare Books and Special Collections Section of the Library of Congress, the director, Jonathan DeHaven is found dead. At the Federalist Club the Speaker of the House has just been brutally murdered by a group calling itself 'Americans Against 1984.' Enter the Camel Club. Its members consist of Caleb Shaw, a librarian from the Library of Congress’s Rare Books and Special Collections Section; Reuben Rhodes, a 60-year-old, much-decorated Vietnam Vet; Milton, a child prodigy who has been treated for an obsessive-compulsive disorder; and Oliver Stone, a former member of the fictitious Triple Six section (hired assassins) of the CIA. When Caleb is appointed the executor of DeHaven’s literary collection, he learns about more than the value of the books. The fleeing Annabelle also has reasons to be interested in DeHaven’s death. The Camel Club, with the unexpected assistance of Annabelle, set out to find why and how DeHaven died. In the process they become involved with the seamy side of politics and discover an intricate espionage plot that has baffled all the security agencies. The repartee between Annabelle and the men she works with on the long-con, as well as her relationship with those in the Camel Club, seems a lot like Jamie Lee Curtis, Michael Palin, John Cleese, and Kevin Kline in A Fish Called Wanda. The light banter is a refreshing way of distinguishing the characters from each other as the action moves along rapidly from one venue to the next. However, the frantic chases through the Metro system in Washington DC and reconnaissance missions in DC and the Virginia countryside still show the reader the seriousness of the situation facing the characters. The reader is left with an agonizing cliff-hanger to carry them over to the next novel.
Reviewed by Ginger K. W. Stratton, November 2006
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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