Off The Chart: A Taking Risks Novel

Book 2 in a new romantic thriller series by Sandy Parks, author of Repossessed, winner of Daphne du Maurier Mainstream Mystery/Suspense Award and Maggie Award. Joni Bell’s life as a former American military helicopter pilot has grown complicated. The only way to rescue a spy she’s come to love and keep a promise to a child whose father is a political prisoner in Africa is to assist the CIA. Can she do all this while keeping one step ahead of a traitor in her midst? Former Special Forces soldier Ian Taljaard is avoiding Zimbabwean intelligence (CIO). They want him stopped after he aided the imprisoned finance minister in uncovering government corruption and secrets officials need to keep buried. Now Ian’s pressing goal is to find where the CIO is keeping the minister and free him. The last thing Ian wants is for captivating American Joni Bell to risk coming back to where the CIO wants her dead. Yet Joni does return, with support from the American CIA and unwelcome help from a fellow pilot assigned as her escort. Ian fears the duplicitous CIA is hiding the true mission once again and that Joni’s coworker harbors secrets…secrets with the potential to kill.

Flying and science are evident themes in Sandy's manuscripts. She is a hydrogeologist by training with an MS in geological sciences and has taken additional graduate engineering course work. She has taught at a university, worked on a military project for the Air Force Flight Test Center, worked as a design engineer for a civil engineering firm, and done computer modeling and field studies as a hydrogeologic consultant. Keeping up with her two sons, she also learned how to fly and dive and survived sparring for fifteen years as a black belt in kenpo karate. She has studied in England and Italy, traveled to South Africa, Egypt, Asia, and South America, and still travels to places of interest all over the world so she can make her stories richer.