Third Strike-Zoe Sharp

Third Strike
Zoe Sharp
Dunne, Oct 2008,
ISBN: 0312358970

In New York City, English expatriate bodyguard Charlie Fox is stunned to see her estranged father, a renowned physician on TV being accused of medical negligence in the death of a friend in Massachusetts; almost as stunning as the accusation of he drank while caring for his friend is that he is in Manhattan. Charlie pulls off a ploy to confront her father who tells her to mind her business.

The next day Charlie and her lover Sean Meyer follow her father to a rendezvous with a hooker in Brooklyn, but the trio gets busted by the cops. The negative publicity hurts her employer the Parker Armstrong agency, but her boss may be upset but supports her. Charlie calls her mom in England, who acts almost as strange as her father. Charlie and Sean believe her mom could not freely talk to her so they fly England to find out what is going on there; they find her mom held hostage by a tall muscular woman and an even bigger man. Nothing makes sense except extracting her parents from what they do not know.

The THIRD STRIKE Charlie Fox thriller (see FIRST DROP and SECOND SHOT) is an entertaining tale that because it is family, readers learn a lot about the heroine and her estrangement with her parents. The story line is action-packed from the moment that Charlie sees her father behaving out of character on the TV news and never slows down in England, Manhattan or Brooklyn. Although the scenario of what happened to her parents seems stretched; readers will enjoy this sharp fast-paced thriller as Charlie and Sean try to extract her parents from a cross Atlantic mess.

Harriet Klausner