Heartbreaker: A novel - Hardcover

Ferrigno, Robert

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0375401245 ISBN 13: 9780375401244

Publisher: Pantheon, 1999

Synopsis

lt opens with a killing on a south Florida beach. Val Duran, an undercover cop, is forced to witness the murder of his partner, which has been arranged by a drug kingpin called Junior. In retaliation, Val kills two of Junior's men, but the score is far from settled.

Val quits Florida fast and doesn't stop until he reaches Hollywood. He ends up doing stunt work in B movies, but his real life turns out to be much more hazardous: He's fallen hard for Kyle Abbott, a marine biologist with an attitude, a pedigree, and a take on nature ("survival is all about speed and cunning, camouflage and adaptability") that would have forewarned Val had she not completely disarmed his habitual protective paranoia.

Which means that he doesn't see Junior coming until it's almost too late. And, even more dangerously, Val doesn't notice how fast he's sinking into the morass of Kyle's deadly, dysfunctional family: Her dissolute stepbrother and his dangerous girl friend are planning to forcibly wrest the purse strings to Daddy's fortune from the control of overbearing Stepmom. Val might be able to keep himself out of Junior's line of fire, but he doesn't see any way to help Kyle without dragging her directly into it.

The cast of edgy eccentrics, a breakneck pace and caustic humor, a seamless combination of the macabre and the eccentric, the raucous and the romantic--all these elements combine to make Heartbreaker the fiercest, most audacious novel we have had from Robert Ferrigno in years.

About this title

Review

You know you're in smart hands in this latest thriller by Robert Ferrigno because his character, ex-undercover cop Val Duran, appears on the television quiz show Jeopardy. His reasoning? To catch the attention of a dangerous adversary named Junior.

Val smiled, imagining Junior's expression when he saw the show. Junior taped every episode of Jeopardy. Half the dope dealers in south Florida were glued to the tube every afternoon, making bets, yelling at the contestants. Junior once shot out a forty-seven inch Mitsubishi over a missed answer.

Junior also killed Val's former partner and threatened his only living relative, his grandmother, Grace. Val takes the old woman with him from Miami, and they hide out in Southern California. Here, he plots some serious revenge on the Floridian villain. Complicating matters are a beautiful, troubled marine biologist named Kyle Abbott and her seriously dysfunctional wealthy family. There's also a pair of killer extortionists after the Abbott family's fortune--a gorgeous sociopath named Jackie and a monolithic Gulf War Syndrome victim named Dekker. They all start out as very nasty genre stereotypes, but end up, thanks to Ferrigno's marvelously deft touch, as understandable and even likable human beings. There are even a couple of fresh insights into the overused landscape of Los Angeles: "Even before dawn the freeways buzzed with ambition. It made him homesick for the sultry indolence of Miami, cruising down the A1A, windows rolled down so he could smell the oleander blooming along the median."

Other Ferrigno titles include Dead Man's Dance and Dead Silent. --Dick Adler

From the Publisher

"As if invigorated by his move to a new publisher, Ferrigno has produced his best novel in years, a splendidly readable, cinematic thriller . . . The array of subplots and mixed motives should entice fans of Elmore Leonard and Ross Thomas. Ferrigno's complex edifice of wrongdoing rises to an ending that feels just right, and shows how far some racy characters will go in search of money--and for love."
--Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"Hearbreaker is a dark, comic tour-de-force. It's consistently and casually knockout, brutal, and hilarious. It's a hothouse flower with a wild sense of place and a wilder believability. Dig it and dig it now."
--James Ellroy, author of My Dark Places and L.A. Confidential

"I enjoyed it, and the farther I went in it, the more the story pulled me in . . . edgy, efficient, brutal and sometimes comical, with an unexpectedly moving love story."
--Craig Holden, author of Four Corners of the Night

About this edition

• Publisher: Pantheon
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0375401245
• ISBN 13: 9780375401244
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 320