Midas

by Russell Andrews

Overview

New York's Hamptons are the summer playground for Wall Street big shots, Hollywood starlets, and all species of glitterati in between. But when a Middle Eastern man rigged with explosives walks into a chic restaurant and blows himself up, all that glamour is shattered. And so is the security and safety of the entire United States. Drawn into this case is Justin Westwood, a local East End Harbor cop who is still haunted by the violent deaths of his wife and daughter years before. After meeting a beautiful woman whose hunger for human contact and comfort matches his own, he believes he is finally winning the battle with his old ghosts. Yet just as he is beginning to grasp hold of the new life he's been craving, he is saddled with this new murder investigation-one far more dangerous than any he's ever tackled.

Soon after the restaurant explosion-the first suicide bombing ever to hit U.S. shores-a small plane crashes in the middle of East End Harbor. It is initially deemed an accident but after the pilot's body disappears, as do all traces of his identification, Justin realizes he's dealing with sabotage. When more terrorist strikes occur, each more devastating than the last, Justin also begins to understand that they all share an elusive, undeniable link-one that will plunge him into a terrifying journey leading to some of the country's most powerful figures and their darkest, most closely held secrets. If he is to survive, Justin must wend his way through a complicated maze of corruption and confront startling truths about big business and politics and, most of all, about himself. For a long time, Justin Westwood has wondered if he could ever truly be frightened again, or if anything could reclaim his soul. Some part of him hoped it was possible. He is about to get his wish...

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780446509640
Publisher:	Grand Central Publishing
Publication date:	09/03/2007
Sold by:	Hachette Digital, Inc.
Format:	eBook
Sales rank:	941,598
File size:	767 KB

About the Author

Russell Andrews and Aphrodite. When using his real name, he is an editor, a screenwriter, a producer, a novelist, and the author of three bestselling nonfiction books: The Cat Who Went to Paris, A Cat Abroad, and The Cat Who'll Live Forever. He divides his time among homes in New York City and Sag Harbor, New York, and Sicily.

Read an Excerpt

Midas

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By Russell Andrews

Mysterious Press

Copyright © 2005 Peter Gethers
All right reserved.
ISBN: 0-892-96791-9

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Chapter One

From the Houston Chronicle

Reuters News Service

September 14

Environmental Surprise From The Anderson Administration

Led by Vice President Dandridge

A New Direction in Land Preservation

IN A MOVE EQUALLY SURPRISING to both foes and supporters, Stephanie Ingles, the Administrator for the Environmental Protection Agency, announced yesterday that over eight million acres in Alaska's National Petroleum Reserve have been designated as a national monument and have thus become permanently off-limits to oil companies that have been pressing the administration to let them begin drilling in the region.

The National Petroleum Reserve is not a name that conjurs a vision of pristine space but it is, in fact, the largest expanse of untouched wilderness left in the United States. In 1923, President Harding established the region as a petroleum reserve, stipulating that the oil fields be drilled only in time of pressing national need. Large and influential oil and energy companies such as EGenco and Halliburton have recently been lobbying the administration to open the fields for exploration, saying that if ever there was a national need the time is now. President Thomas Anderson has, in the past, been sympathetic to the needs of such companies, as has Vice President Phillip Dandridge, and environmentalists had been expecting Ms. Ingles to announce that the administration had bowed to the pressure. However, despite the recent rise in oil prices-yesterday's closing left the price of oil at $44.78 per barrel-Ms. Ingles said that the President was standing firm on this issue. "Despite what is perceived as this administration's close ties to the oil industry," Ms. Ingles stated, "Vice President Dandridge is a committed environmentalist. He is well aware of the wildlife that swims in and roams around the Colville River Watershed, Kasegaluk Lagoon, Teshekpuk Lake and the Utukok Highlands, and he has no intention of allowing the ecological balance within those areas to be disturbed. The Vice President took the lead in this initiative and the President wholeheartedly concurs with the stand that's being taken."

Members of the President and Vice President's party did not offer unanimous support after the announcement. Speaker of the House Lester Swannig said that he was "withholding any final judgment on this decision, but I am dismayed at the potential rise in oil prices it may cause. We have been trying to keep the cost of gasoline down since it affects every American citizen. Shutting off this acreage from drilling will certainly not help that effort and I have to say I don't understand this shift in priorities."

Environmentalists warily applauded the decision. Christine Herr, co-chairperson of the Save the Earth Foundation, said, "I am pleased by the decision although I admit it did rather shock me. Over the past seven years, environmental protection has taken a backseat to just about everything else one could name. However, as everyone knows, Vice President Dandridge is beginning his push to achieve his party's presidential nomination next year and I imagine his advisers are telling him he needs to make some concessions to 'kooks' like us. But even if this decision was made for political reasons, it's a decision I'm glad this administration had the courage to make."

Vice President Dandridge is the presumed presidential nominee for his party in next November's election. Heading into primary season, he has a substantial lead in the polls in nearly every state, with very few opponents within the Republican Party. The Vice President does, however, currently trail both of the men competing for the Democratic nomination, Indiana Senator Martin Vance and Georgia Governor Oren Childress. All of his potential Democratic opponents supported this decision on the National Petroleum Reserve and voiced their hopes that in the last year of President Anderson's final term he will take even more of a lead in protecting the environment.

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from Midas by Russell Andrews Copyright © 2005 by Peter Gethers. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Editorial Reviews

This well-written "post-9/11" thriller from Andrews (the pseudonym of New York City book editor Peter Gethers) starts off with two seemingly innocuous news items: an EPA announcement that places an Alaskan oil field "permanently off-limits to oil companies" and a Bloomberg report on oil prices. But then the novel explodes with a nightmarish event: a suicide bombing destroys a restaurant in one of Long Island's fashionable beach towns, killing (among others) East End Harbor sheriff Jimmy Leggett. Leggett's widow wants the new sheriff, Justin Westwood (the protagonist of 2003's Aphrodite), to find out who's behind her husband's murder. Soon another incident-a small plane crashes just after take-off-commands Westwood's immediate attention; the dead pilot has no ID and, bizarrely, leaves no fingerprints. Westwood's relentlessly dogged investigation pits him against some powerful characters indeed-Islamic terrorists or our own government?-and puts him in real danger: the book's best section vividly describes what it might be like to be interrogated at Guant namo Bay. While some readers may be put off by the broad caricature of the current administration and a conspiracy-laden plot that perhaps only Michael Moore and his acolytes could find credible, all will cheer the appealing Westwood as he pursues the truth. Agent, Esther Newberg. (Mar. 22) FYI: Gethers is also the author of The Cat Who Went to Paris and other works of nonfiction. Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Publishers Weekly

Terrorists, yes-ruthless, violent, frightening-but whose terrorists?A devastating explosion destroys Harper's, a popular restaurant in East End Harbor, the small town bordering the niftier part of New York's storied Hamptons. Gone in a nanosecond is the lunchtime crowd, including Sheriff Jimmy Leggett. It's this horrific fact that propels Jay Westwood into a promotion he certainly never sought and is tempted to refuse. But only briefly. Jay, as readers familiar with the series (Aphrodite, 2004, etc.) well know, is a man born to do hard jobs. Almost at once Sheriff Westwood begins to worry about the possible connection between the crash of a small plane at East End Airport and the suicide bombing at Harper's. A tenuous connection, true enough-the bombing says terrorism; the crash says accident-still, something about it niggles. As Westwood tracks alone along this avenue, he wonders more than once if he really knows what he's doing. ("He decided, as usual, that he didn't, but he was damn sure going to go ahead and do it anyway.") When suicide bombers level two more restaurants, attention quite naturally focuses overseas. By now, however, Jay has turned up a most mysterious name: Midas, linked to a most formidable coterie of movers and shakers. What is Midas? No one seems prepared to answer this knotty and dangerous question, since those asking it tend to meet untimely ends. Jay sees and understands this lethal cause and effect, but being the kind of cat he is, curiosity is endemic. Suddenly the matter is taken out of his hands, and Jay discovers what it means to be on the wrong end of something called the Triumph of Freedom Act. Overly convoluted, as seems inevitable in an Andrews thriller,but readers who hang in will be vastly entertained. And maybe a bit unnerved.

Kirkus Reviews