Latest Novel - I, Of Limited Mercy

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Latest Novel - I, Of Limited Mercy

Posted by: Larry M. Rosen ()

Date: June 21, 2012 04:21PM

My latest novel--I, Of Limited Mercy--is now available as an E-book at www.Lulu.com/spotlight/LarryMRosen. It's a spinoff novel featuring Maxine Kordell, but includes Willi Mayers, Haley, Mena Harling, and Nora Kelly. The following highlights the plotline.

Maxine Kordell—-former serial killer, top secret government wet work specialist, Program Manager at a Virginia consulting firm, and compleat conservative-—is on her way to Arizona, to visit her parents, and attend a high school reunion. Max is looking forward to a relaxing week, and has brought her black Lab, Pele, with her. But her tranquility is quickly dashed when al-Qaeda tries to hijack her plane, and a female gang accosts her at a local convenience store.

In Phoenix, Max renews her friendship with Marty Blair, her guardian angel in high school. When Marty is murdered, an enraged Max seeks to uncloak his killer. But matters are far more complex than surface appearances indicate, and Max is soon threatened by a Mexican drug cartel, a group of coyotes, and the local police, who resent her presence and may even be compromised
by the cartel.

When things escalate, Max enlists the aid of Mena Harling and Willi Mayers. 3-M, now reunited, unearths some of the truth, then exacts a terrible vengeance. But law enforcement turns on 3-M, as does a U.S. Congressman who accuses them of anti-Latino bias and motives. When the three women, while in custody, are almost murdered, Haley joins them.

But a chain of events begun in 1824 intrudes, involving Spanish painter Francisco Goya, Jim Bowie and Davy Crockett, Sherlock Holmes, Mexican realist painter Francisco Goitia, Nazi war criminals, American industrialists, Pope
Pius XII, the murderous movement known as Croatia Ustasha, and The Cluster, a shadowy group led by The Tracer. To confound matters, a list exists implicating The Cluster, The Vatican, and others in the escape of World War II war criminals. The list had been compiled years earlier by former Vice President and New York Governor Aldrich Fellerson, along with a plan for hiding it devised by Sherlock Holmes, who has kept secret one last deception intended to thwart The Cluster.

A request for assistance from Pope John Paul II soon has the foursome flying to Rome for a session with the pontiff, where Haley’s pointed questioning about The Vatican Ratlines upsets staunch Catholic Max. Unknown to them, helping the pope makes them pawns in a feud between two cardinals, as well as targets of the Mafia. As the violence escalates, 3-M and Haley learn they are up against a cadre of professional killers every bit as deadly as they are-—Vedova Nera, El Encarnizado, Ustasha, and Mantide Religiosa. And once again, they are puppets dancing on the strings of The Tracer, an adversary whose identity they don’t know.

Alone and facing deadly forces that vastly outnumber them, the foursome return to Arizona, where-—aided by Sherlockian and born again Christian Nora Kelly-—they discover a letter written by Sherlock Holmes. Deciphering Holmes’ ciphers within ciphers sends them on a hunt for Goya’s missing paintings, Jim Bowie’s hidden silver trove, and Fellerson’s list. But nothing is as it seems and treachery is everywhere, from Arizona to The Vatican itself, as old and new enemies work to destroy them. Finally, when an enraged Max learns the identity of Marty Blair’s killer, the need for revenge moves her to face alone an adversary whose ferocity and skill with a knife may exceed her own.

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