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Spurred Ambition
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About the Author:
Twist received her bachelor and law degrees from Stanford University, completing her undergraduate studies in two years. Success as a plaintiffs' trial lawyer enabled her to retire in her early thirties. Since then, Twist has been a world traveler and endurance athlete. A different sport figures into each of her legal-themed mysteries, which are set in the fictitious Arizona town of Pinnacle Peak. www.twistphelan.com.
Review:
"Fans of extreme sports will admire Phelan's protagonist, lawyer and athlete Hana Dain, but even those more at home on the couch will still enjoy the brainy heroine...The sports angles makes an intriguing frame [for this successful] series, which boasts a nice mix of desert atmosphere and appealing characters."
—Booklist
Rock climbing is the terrifying amusement of choice in "Spurred Ambition," the third mystery by attorney and extreme sports enthusiast Twist Phelan, whose Hannah Dain could probably whip any wimpy lawyer hero created by the likes of John Grisham or Lisa Scottoline with one arm tied behind her back. Taking a break from the affairs of her family, who make King Lear's outfit look like a Hallmark production, Dain is working out some of her anger and angst on a challenging cliff outside of her Arizona hometown, Pinnacle Peak. Then a shoulder gives out; she is in big trouble--a long way from the ground. Fortunately, another climber--a handsome and muscular fellow--hears her cries for help and gets her down. As luck would have it, her lifesaver, Tony Soto, is a leader of the local Indian tribe for which Dain has agreed to do some legal work. A budding romance between them is interrupted by Soto's kidnapping--either because he has been too passionate about tribal rights or because he's involved in a major swindle. Dain copes admirably--and keeps us a few breaths short of hyperventilation once again. – Dick Adler, Chicago Tribune (2/5/2006)
SPURRED AMBITION by Twist Phelan (Poisoned Pen Press, $24.95, January 2006) Rating: B+ Attorney Hannah Dain, fresh from the startling revelations at the end of the previous book in this series, Family Claims, heads for the cliffs outside Pinnacle Peak, Arizona. She is looking to climb the rocks on the reservation, but finds herself the target of an anti-Native-American protest. In the process she makes an enemy, but also a new friend, Tony Soto, who turns out to be her next employer. Soto, a Native American/Latino, is seeking to improve life on the reservation. The tribe is building a shopping center and Hannah is hired to put the transaction together. But she finds herself attracted to Tony, jeopardizing her relationship with Cooper Smith, her “almost fiancé.” When Tony is kidnapped right in front of Hannah, the shopping center deal is in danger of falling apart. Are Soto and the tribe victims of the people wanting to stop the Native American expansion? Or is there some other motive behind his disappearance? Further, Hannah has personal problems of her own that send her on an emotional search into her past.
This is the third book in Twist Phelan’s well-written Pinnacle Peak series (the second one with Dain as the protagonist). Each book features a different sport to tie the story together. The athletic focus of this novel is rock climbing. Hannah puts her skills to use several times in the book, each effort resulting in brushes with death that makes one feel as if one were on the rocks next to her. But beyond that Phelan has perfectly captured the blistering heat of Arizona, the beauty of the desert, and modern day life on a reservation booming with the clatter of a casino.
The plot is one of complex financial manipulations, kidnapping, and ultimately murder as Hannah, a suspect herself, attempts to keep the shopping center deal on track. But she finds this as difficult as scaling a cliff wall. Her personal quest at times gets in the way of her professional duties. But she manages to find a way to handle everything and bring the story to a satisfying conclusion.
Phelan has skillfully handled the personal, professional, and physical aspects of the story. She is an attorney, who retired in her early thirties, as well as an endurance athlete herself. She demonstrates a through knowledge of the law and its intricacies, together with an ability to make the sports aspect of the story come alive. All of these talents are put to excellent use in crafting this entertaining mystery.
--Deadly Pleasures
From: gloriafeit@ATT.NET Subject: Review: Spurred Ambition
Spurred Ambition
By Twist Phelan Poisoned Pen Press
Hardcover, 202 pp; January 2006 $24.95 U.S./$34.95 Can. ISBN 1-59058-147-4
Hannah Dain, the protagonist in this new mystery by Twist Phelan, is a business attorney in her father's law practice. But even that last is one of the `facts' with which Hannah is dealing with as the book starts: She has recently discovered that the man who she has always believed to be her father is not, in fact, her biological father. It would appear that her mother, who died days after giving birth to Hannah, had had a liaison with another man, and that Hannah was the product of that `relationship.' Hannah became aware of this at the conclusion of the prior book by Ms. Phelan, Family Claims. One of the results of this awareness is that Hannah has decided to take a break from the firm and take on a temporary job, putting together a real estate private placement for the Office of Tribal Affairs for the Tohono O'odham, at the Indian reservation nearby the fictional town of Pinnacle Peak, Arizona. The job entails quite a bit less than the complicated transactions Hanna h is used to working on, and the salary about half of her normal one.
Actually, Spurred Ambition starts with an earlier scene, wherein Hannah, to clear her mind from all the emotional stuff with which she is dealing, indulges in her passion of the moment, going to the rock-climbing park contained within the reservation. The descriptions of the effort has the reader feeling the danger and tension of the climb, as Hannah encounters difficulties from which she is rescued by a handsome stranger, escaping with only some cuts and bruises and a painful shoulder injury. Whether it's the adrenaline surge of the danger or just momentary lust, Hannah kisses the man, who introduces himself as "Tony," before they part ways. Imagine her shock when the goes for the job interview [the outcome of which is, literally, a foregone conclusion] the following day and discovers her new boss is none other than that handsome stranger.
Hannah has to put her emotions, both the ones dealing with her family situation as well as her feelings for Tony, on hold as she deals with getting the business venture off the ground. There is a lot at stake for the Indians, for the venture involves a much grander scale for the casino which has brought so much new-found wealth to the tribe. Tony, although half Indian and half Mexican, is fiercely dedicated to improving the lot of the Indians, and has taken some rather unorthodox steps to be sure his plans and those of his bosses come to fruition. But things take an unexpected turn when Tony is kidnapped, and an important figure in the Indian community is found murdered shortly thereafter. Hannah becomes embroiled in the ensuing investigation, both of these crimes and of the investment venture itself following the theft of all the documentation pertaining to it. The suspense mounts as the investigation proceeds, until the unexpected conclusion, and a final twist [no pun intended] at the very end. The book is very fast-paced and well-written. While her protagonist seems to have some ambivalence about the desert country, as opposed to the East Coast region she recently left, the author's descriptions of the Arizona landscape are at times lyrical and capture the beauty of the area.
Recommended.
--Dorothy L
The view from the top of the mountain isn't at all what Hannah expected....
Praise for Family Claims
a Calavera Award nominee...
"Phelan vividly evokes the Arizona desert and thrills with convincing legal detail. Hannah [Dain] makes a sympathetic and appealing heroine likely to have an interesting future."
-- Publishers Weekly
—Booklist
Rock climbing is the terrifying amusement of choice in "Spurred Ambition," the third mystery by attorney and extreme sports enthusiast Twist Phelan, whose Hannah Dain could probably whip any wimpy lawyer hero created by the likes of John Grisham or Lisa Scottoline with one arm tied behind her back. Taking a break from the affairs of her family, who make King Lear's outfit look like a Hallmark production, Dain is working out some of her anger and angst on a challenging cliff outside of her Arizona hometown, Pinnacle Peak. Then a shoulder gives out; she is in big trouble--a long way from the ground. Fortunately, another climber--a handsome and muscular fellow--hears her cries for help and gets her down. As luck would have it, her lifesaver, Tony Soto, is a leader of the local Indian tribe for which Dain has agreed to do some legal work. A budding romance between them is interrupted by Soto's kidnapping--either because he has been too passionate about tribal rights or because he's involved in a major swindle. Dain copes admirably--and keeps us a few breaths short of hyperventilation once again. – Dick Adler, Chicago Tribune (2/5/2006)
SPURRED AMBITION by Twist Phelan (Poisoned Pen Press, $24.95, January 2006) Rating: B+ Attorney Hannah Dain, fresh from the startling revelations at the end of the previous book in this series, Family Claims, heads for the cliffs outside Pinnacle Peak, Arizona. She is looking to climb the rocks on the reservation, but finds herself the target of an anti-Native-American protest. In the process she makes an enemy, but also a new friend, Tony Soto, who turns out to be her next employer. Soto, a Native American/Latino, is seeking to improve life on the reservation. The tribe is building a shopping center and Hannah is hired to put the transaction together. But she finds herself attracted to Tony, jeopardizing her relationship with Cooper Smith, her “almost fiancé.” When Tony is kidnapped right in front of Hannah, the shopping center deal is in danger of falling apart. Are Soto and the tribe victims of the people wanting to stop the Native American expansion? Or is there some other motive behind his disappearance? Further, Hannah has personal problems of her own that send her on an emotional search into her past.
This is the third book in Twist Phelan’s well-written Pinnacle Peak series (the second one with Dain as the protagonist). Each book features a different sport to tie the story together. The athletic focus of this novel is rock climbing. Hannah puts her skills to use several times in the book, each effort resulting in brushes with death that makes one feel as if one were on the rocks next to her. But beyond that Phelan has perfectly captured the blistering heat of Arizona, the beauty of the desert, and modern day life on a reservation booming with the clatter of a casino.
The plot is one of complex financial manipulations, kidnapping, and ultimately murder as Hannah, a suspect herself, attempts to keep the shopping center deal on track. But she finds this as difficult as scaling a cliff wall. Her personal quest at times gets in the way of her professional duties. But she manages to find a way to handle everything and bring the story to a satisfying conclusion.
Phelan has skillfully handled the personal, professional, and physical aspects of the story. She is an attorney, who retired in her early thirties, as well as an endurance athlete herself. She demonstrates a through knowledge of the law and its intricacies, together with an ability to make the sports aspect of the story come alive. All of these talents are put to excellent use in crafting this entertaining mystery.
--Deadly Pleasures
From: gloriafeit@ATT.NET Subject: Review: Spurred Ambition
Spurred Ambition
By Twist Phelan Poisoned Pen Press
Hardcover, 202 pp; January 2006 $24.95 U.S./$34.95 Can. ISBN 1-59058-147-4
Hannah Dain, the protagonist in this new mystery by Twist Phelan, is a business attorney in her father's law practice. But even that last is one of the `facts' with which Hannah is dealing with as the book starts: She has recently discovered that the man who she has always believed to be her father is not, in fact, her biological father. It would appear that her mother, who died days after giving birth to Hannah, had had a liaison with another man, and that Hannah was the product of that `relationship.' Hannah became aware of this at the conclusion of the prior book by Ms. Phelan, Family Claims. One of the results of this awareness is that Hannah has decided to take a break from the firm and take on a temporary job, putting together a real estate private placement for the Office of Tribal Affairs for the Tohono O'odham, at the Indian reservation nearby the fictional town of Pinnacle Peak, Arizona. The job entails quite a bit less than the complicated transactions Hanna h is used to working on, and the salary about half of her normal one.
Actually, Spurred Ambition starts with an earlier scene, wherein Hannah, to clear her mind from all the emotional stuff with which she is dealing, indulges in her passion of the moment, going to the rock-climbing park contained within the reservation. The descriptions of the effort has the reader feeling the danger and tension of the climb, as Hannah encounters difficulties from which she is rescued by a handsome stranger, escaping with only some cuts and bruises and a painful shoulder injury. Whether it's the adrenaline surge of the danger or just momentary lust, Hannah kisses the man, who introduces himself as "Tony," before they part ways. Imagine her shock when the goes for the job interview [the outcome of which is, literally, a foregone conclusion] the following day and discovers her new boss is none other than that handsome stranger.
Hannah has to put her emotions, both the ones dealing with her family situation as well as her feelings for Tony, on hold as she deals with getting the business venture off the ground. There is a lot at stake for the Indians, for the venture involves a much grander scale for the casino which has brought so much new-found wealth to the tribe. Tony, although half Indian and half Mexican, is fiercely dedicated to improving the lot of the Indians, and has taken some rather unorthodox steps to be sure his plans and those of his bosses come to fruition. But things take an unexpected turn when Tony is kidnapped, and an important figure in the Indian community is found murdered shortly thereafter. Hannah becomes embroiled in the ensuing investigation, both of these crimes and of the investment venture itself following the theft of all the documentation pertaining to it. The suspense mounts as the investigation proceeds, until the unexpected conclusion, and a final twist [no pun intended] at the very end. The book is very fast-paced and well-written. While her protagonist seems to have some ambivalence about the desert country, as opposed to the East Coast region she recently left, the author's descriptions of the Arizona landscape are at times lyrical and capture the beauty of the area.
Recommended.
--Dorothy L
The view from the top of the mountain isn't at all what Hannah expected....
Praise for Family Claims
a Calavera Award nominee...
"Phelan vividly evokes the Arizona desert and thrills with convincing legal detail. Hannah [Dain] makes a sympathetic and appealing heroine likely to have an interesting future."
-- Publishers Weekly
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- PublisherRobert Hale Ltd
- Publication date2006
- ISBN 10 0709081219
- ISBN 13 9780709081210
- BindingHardcover
- Number of pages224
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Spurred Ambition
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Robert Hale
(2006)
ISBN 10: 0709081219
ISBN 13: 9780709081210
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Book Description Hardcover. Condition: New. First Edition. First Edition thus, as good as new. Spurred Ambition by Twist Phelan. Published by Robert Hale in 2006. Hardcover ISBN:9780709081210. Collectible item in excellent condition. Seller Inventory # 0709081210
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