Point Blank [With Earbuds] Book

The explosive action kicks off as FBI agent Ruth Warnecki hunts for Confederate gold in a West Virginia cave. She never expects to encounter the grisly murder that catapults her into a horrific plague of death, all centered on the prestigious Stanislaus School of Music.

And at Hooter's Motel in Maryland, FBI agents Savich and Carver are nearly killed while attempting to rescue a kidnap victim. Instead of a hostage, all they see is a glowing-red timer and then a catastrophic explosion. They are then led to Arlington National Cemetery, but the search for the kidnap victim is cut short when Savich takes a fateful call on his cell, as a mysterious voice threatens to kill him and his wife.

Pitted against an insane killer and his psychotic teenage girlfriend, Savich and Sherlock find themselves fighting a hate-driven villain with a very long memory.

Point Blank is a nail-biting, edge-of-your-seat thriller, as exhilarating and terrifying as anything Catherine Coulter has ever written.

Publishers Weekly

Coulter's new thriller romance (Blowout, etc.) opens with Ruth Warnecki lost in a cave in rural Virginia while fellow (married) FBI agents Dillon Savich and Lacey Sherlock are hot on the tail of a psychotic dirty old man (Moses Grace) and his flirtatious teenage partner (Claudia), who've kidnapped a smalltime comedian. Coulter fans know if they suspend belief-really suspend belief-she'll deliver page-turners filled with good guys battling bad guys as well as enjoying domestic tranquility. After Ruth makes it out of the cave, she's cared for by Dixon Noble, the local sheriff and ex-New Yorker with two kids and a missing wife; then Ruth and the gang return to the cave to discover the body of a murdered music student. Lacey and Dillon consult MAX the miracle computer about Moses while Dix introduces Ruth to his domineering father-in-law, Chappy, and musician Gordon, Chappy's geriatric lech of a brother. Coulter alternates between the search for the student's killer and the hunt for Moses, cases tied together only by the FBI agents solving them and the theme of criminally insane grumpy old men. Coulter continues to prove more convincing describing virtue than vice, which means that sympathetic characters and happy endings take precedence over serious detective work. (On sale Aug. 23) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.