Grove O'Rourke, a Wall Street
stockbroker, receives a call from his mentor, Palmer Kincaid. Palmer
sounds shaky. He says he needs Grove's help. As usual, things are
busy on Wall Street, before Grove can respond Palmer is dead. Gove
travels to Charleston for the funeral and finds that Palmer has
nominated him to be on the board of the Palmetto Foundation. Not only
is this a chance to sit on the board of a well-financed foundation,
but it's an opportunity for Grove to renew his acquaintance with
Claire Kincaid, Palmer's daughter, but something don't seem quite
right at the foundation, particularly a grant to a Catholic Charity
that rescues abused children in the Philipines.
I started out liking this book very
much. Grove is an engaging character and the setting in Charleston is
lovely. However, I had some problems with the progress of the
narrative. The plot is quite complex and the story slows down as we
get all the players on the scene. Although the male characters are
well done, I thought the female characters were stereotypes. Grove's
boss, Katy Anders, and the FBI agent, Torres, are strident bitches.
Claire is a rather anemic character who never really comes into focus
for me, and Jojo is not believable.
The other problem I had with the book
was violence. The first half was fine, but the second half is one
violent incident after another; fingers being cut off, eyes gouged
out, people suffocated by putting foam into their mouths. It's hard
to buy a stockbroker as the hero of all this violent activity.
However, it you can stand the violence, the plot is interesting and I
loved the setting.
I reviewed this book for the Amazon
Vine Program.
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