Author: L. A. Starks
Strike Price, Lynn Dayton Thriller #2
Synopsis
"If you're looking for big business wheeling-and-dealing, international intrigue, murder, mayhem, and high-geared action, you've come to the right place. Toss in a charming and nervy protagonist like Lynn Dayton and L. A. Starks' STRIKE PRICE is right on the money. Well-written, well-plotted and well worth a reader's time."--Carlton Stowers, two-time Edgar winner
"STRIKE PRICE takes the reader from Oklahoma Indian reservations to the streets of Florence, in an imaginative and well informed fusion of oil refining economics, Native American politics, and the potential for lethal mayhem in the global energy market."--Michael Ennis, author of New York Times bestseller, The Malice of Fortune
Murder disrupts a billion-dollar oil deal.STRIKE PRICE is a story about a business deal turned deadly, concluding with a plot to destroy a hidden, crucial US oil center and bring the US into confrontation with another global power. To stop the plot and save lives, up-by-the-bootstraps Lynn Dayton must trust a Cherokee elder who carries a corrosive secret.
STRIKE PRICE features authentic Cherokee syllabary text in clues that tie fascinating Native American history to global high-stakes drama today.
"Plan on not sleeping tonight." James Gary Vineyard - - - author of The Grave On Peckerwood Hill
"Fast-paced and convincingly choreographed, Starks' novel presents a spot-on depiction of today's oil business that grips and scares and offers the reader plenty to think about." Richard Holcroft - - - author of Patriot's Blood
KIRKUS REVIEWStarks (13 Days: The Pythagoras Conspiracy, 2006) offers a thriller set in oil country.Energy company executive Lynn Dayton returns in this sequel. Dayton's company, TriCoast, has a refinery to sell, and there are several interested buyers, including local Cherokee Nation investors and a Saudi prince, as well as Asian and British contingents. The death of a refinery employee at first seems like a fluke, but when the medical examiner rules the cause of death as poison, tensions begin to rise. Dayton's ex-husband's firm is working with the Cherokee Nation group, and when he's poisoned too, many suspect that Dayton is behind it. She, in turn, grows alarmed that someone close to her may be a dangerous criminal. She soon finds herself pushed to the limit, as she also has a sick father and a wedding to plan while she tries to close the TriCoast deal without losing her life. The novel takes place in several locations, including Texas, Oklahoma and parts of Europe, and is mainly narrated in the third person, except for a few first-person passages by a mysterious figure whose identity is slowly revealed over the course of the novel. The dialogue is quick and punchy . . . Starks handles the pacing and suspense masterfully, and although Dayton's final heroic act may strain credulity, it still makes for a thrilling conclusion.
An often gripping novel with a determined heroine, a high body count and a mysterious villain.
Summary: When several people involved in bidding for an oil refinery are murdered, the situation becomes far more than a billion-dollar business deal. A self-made woman in the oil industry, Lynn Dayton fights to save lives when escalating attacks reveal a hired assassin's plan to disrupt oil trade, wreck world economies, and draw another global power into dangerous confrontation with the United States. Are the killers rogue civil servants challenging the Cherokees' financial independence, Sansei operatives again wreaking violence, or sinister investors swapping the bidding war for a real one? Lynn Dayton and Cherokee tribal executive Jesse Drum must learn to trust each other so they can find and stop the killers. Can sobering up really be fatal? How have so many of the deaths been made to appear accidental? Who's creating weapons with modern poisons and ancient Cherokee arts?