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New York Times bestselling author Sandra Brown returns with a tale of corruption and betrayal, revenge and reversal - where friends become foes, and heroes become criminals in the ultimate abuse of power.
When newswoman Britt Shelley wakes up to find herself in bed with Jay Burgess, a rising star detective in the Charleston PD, she remembers nothing of how she got there...or of how Jay wound up dead.
Handsome and hard-partying, Jay was a hero of the disastrous fire that five years earlier had destroyed Charleston's police headquarters. The blaze left seven people dead, but the death toll would have been much higher if not for the bravery of Jay and three other city officials who risked their lives to lead others to safety.
Firefighter Raley Gannon, Jay's lifelong friend, was off-duty that day. Though he might not have been a front-line hero, he was assigned to lead the investigation into the cause of the fire. It was an investigation he never got to complete. Because on one calamitous night, Raley's world was shattered.
Scandalized, wronged by the people he trusted most, Raley was forced to surrender the woman he loved and the work to which he'd dedicated his life. For five years his resentment against the men who exploited their hero status to further their careers -- and ruin his -- had festered, but he was helpless to set things right.
That changes when he learns of Jay Burgess's shocking death and Britt Shelley's claim that she has no memory of her night with him. As the investigation into Jay's death intensifies, and suspicion against Britt Shelley mounts, Raley realizes that the newswoman, Jay's last sexual conquest, might be his only chance to get personal vindication -- and justice for the seven victims of the police station fire.
But there are powerful men who don't want to address unanswered questions about the fire and who will go to any lengths to protect their reputations. As Raley and Britt discover more about what happened that fateful day, the more perilous their situation becomes, until they're not only chasing after the truth but running for their lives.
Friends are exposed as foes, heroes take on the taint of criminals, and no one can be trusted completely. A tale about audacious corruption -- and those with the courage to expose it -- Smoke Screen is Sandra Brown's most searing and intense novel yet.
At the start of this scorching if somewhat formulaic thriller from bestseller Brown (Play Dirty), Charleston, S.C., TV reporter Britt Shelley wakes up in bed next to the dead body of police detective Jay Burgess. While Jay had been diagnosed with terminal cancer, the authorities suspect foul play. Jay's former best friend, ex-fireman Raley Gannon, suffered a similar shock five years earlier, waking up next to party girl Suzi Monroe's naked corpse after a party at Jay's home. Raley had been investigating a fire at a local police station that took seven lives, despite the heroic efforts of Jay and several other cops, one of whom is now South Carolina's attorney general. Cleared of Suzi's death, Raley eventually teams with Britt to look into a nasty arson coverup. Brown laces her dependable romantic fireworks with a solid action-filled plot, though readers should be prepared for a few stereotypes, including a limp-wristed gay, a macho skinhead and a power-mad female politician. (Aug.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From such modest beginnings, Brown has evolved into multimillion publishing empire of one, the CEO of her own literary brand; she towers over the landscape of romantic fiction. Brown has used her growing clout to insist her publishers drop the bosom-and-biceps covers and has added more intricate subplots, suspense, and even unhappy endings to her work. The result: A near-constant presence on The New York Times bestsellers list. In 1992, she had three on the list at the same time, joining that exclusive club of Stephen King, Tom Clancy, J. K. Rowling, and Danielle Steel.
Her work in the mainstream realm has taken her readers into The White House, where the president's newborn dies mysteriously; the oil fields and bedrooms of a Dallas-like family dynasty; and the sexual complications surrounding an investigation into an evangelist's murder. Such inventions have made her a distinct presence in a crowded genre.
"Brown is perhaps best known now for her longer novels of romantic suspense. The basic outline for these stories has passionate love, lust, and violence playing out against a background of unraveling secrets and skeletons jumping out of family closets," wrote Barbara E. Kemp in the book Twentieth-Century Romance & Historical Writers . Kemp also praises Brown's sharp dialogue and richly detailed characters. "However, her greatest key to success is probably that she invites her readers into a fantasy world of passion, intrigue, and danger," she wrote. "They too can face the moral and emotional dilemmas of the heroine, safe in the knowledge that justice and love will prevail."
Critics give her points for nimble storytelling but are cooler to her "serviceable prose," in the words of one Publishers Weekly reviewer. Still, when writing a crack page-turner, the plot's the thing. A 1992 New York Times review placed Brown among a group of a writers "who have mastered the art of the slow tease."
Staggeringly prolific, Brown found her writing pace ground to a halt when she was given a different assignment. A magazine had asked her for an autobiographical piece, and it took her months to complete. Her life in the suburbs, though personally fulfilling, was nonetheless blander than fiction. That may be why she dives into her fiction writing with such workhorse gusto. "I love being the bad guy," she told Publishers Weekly in 1995, "simply because I was always so responsible, so predictable growing up. I made straight A's and never got into any trouble, and I still impose those standards on myself. So writing is my chance to escape and become the sleaziest, scummiest role."
When she started writing, her goal was always to break out of the parameters of romance. After about 45 romances, the woman who counts Tennessee Williams and Taylor Caldwell among her influences told The New York Times that felt she had reached a plateau. In fact, she doesn't even look at her books as romances anymore. "I think of my books now as suspense novels, usually with a love story incorporated," she said. "They're absolutely a lot harder to write than romances. They take more plotting and real character development. Each book is a stretch for me, and I try something interesting each time that males will like as well as women."
1
Raley pulled open the rusty screen door, its hinges squealing. "Hey! You in here?"
"Ain't I usually?"
A curl of faded red paint flaked off when the wood frame slapped closed behind Raley as he stepped into the one-room cabin. It smelled of fried pork and the mouse-gnawed Army blanket on the cot in the corner.
It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the dimness and find the old man. He was sitting at a three-legged table, hunched over a cup of coffee like a dog guarding a hard-won bone, staring into the snowy screen of a black-and-white television. Ghostly images flickered in and out. There was no audio except for a static hiss.
"Good morning."
The old man snorted a welcome through his sheaves of nasal hair. "He'p yourself." He nodded toward the enamel coffeepot on the stove. "Can't recommend the cream. It curdled overnight."
Raley stepped over the three hounds lying motionless on the floor and went to the refrigerator that was jammed between an antique pie safe, which served as a pantry, and a drafting table, which served no purpose whatsoever except to collect dust and further reduce the floor space in the crowded cabin.
The handle on the fridge door had broken off, probably decades ago, but if you pressed your fingers just right into the soft rubber sealant in the crack, you could pry it open. "I brought you some catfish." Raley set the newspaper bundle on one of the rusty wire shelves, then quickly shut the door against the mingled odors of cream gone bad and general spoilage.
"Much obliged."
"You're welcome." The coffee probably had been boiled several times and would be the consistency of molasses. Without cream to dilute it, Raley thought it better to pass.
He glanced at the silent TV. "You need to adjust your rabbit ears."
"Ain't the rabbit ears. I turned off the sound."
"How come?"
The old man replied with one of his customary harrumphs that said he couldn't be bothered to answer. A self-proclaimed recluse, he had lived in voluntary exile ever since "the war," although which war had never been specified. He had as little as possible to do with other Homo sapiens.
Shortly after Raley had moved into the vicinity, the two had come upon each other in the woods. Raley was staring down into the beady eyes of a dead opossum when the old man came crashing through the underbrush and said, "Don't even think about it."
"About what?"
"About taking my possum."
Touching the bloated, flyblown, limp body with the pink, hairless tail and horrible stench was the last thing Raley intended to do. He raised his hands in surrender and stood aside so the barefoot old man in stained overalls could retrieve his kill from the metal jaws of the small trap.
"Way you been stampin' 'round out here, it's a wonder to me it ain't you caught in this trap 'stead of the possum," he grumbled.
Raley wasn't aware that anyone lived within miles of the cabin he'd recently purchased. He'd rather not have had a neighbor of any kind, but especially one who kept track of his comings and goings.
As the old man stood up, his knees protested in loud pops and snaps, which caused him to grimace and mutter a string of curses. With the carcass dangling from his hand, the old man looked Raley over, from his baseball cap and bearded face to the toes of his hiking boots. Inspection complete, the old man spat tobacco juice into the dirt to express his opinion of what he saw. "Man's got a right to walk in the woods," he said. "Just don't go messin' with my traps."
"It would help me to know where they are."
The old man's cracked lips spread into a wide grin, revealing tobacco-stained stubs that once were teeth. "Wouldn't it though?" Still chuckling, he turned away. "You'll find 'em, I'm bettin'." Raley could hear his laughter long after he disappeared into the dense foliage.
Over the ensuing months, they'd accidentally bumped into each other in the woods several times. At least to Raley these were chance meetings. He reasoned the old man made himself visible when he wanted to and didn't when he was disinclined to give his new neighbor even a grunt of a greeting.
One hot afternoon, they met in the doorway of the general store in the nearest town. Raley was coming in, the old man going out. They nodded to each other. Later, when Raley left with several sacks of groceries, he noticed the old man sitting in a chair on the shaded porch of the store, fanning himself with his straw hat. Acting on impulse, Raley peeled a cold can of beer from the plastic webbing and tossed it to the old man, who, revealing excellent reflexes, caught it in one hand.
Raley stowed his groceries in the bed of his pickup and climbed into the cab. The old man regarded him with patent suspicion as he put the truck in reverse and backed away, but Raley noticed that he'd popped the top on the beer.
The following morning there was hard knocking on Raley's door. This being a first, he approached the door cautiously. The old man was there, holding a chipped ceramic bowl containing a heap of some raw animal flesh that Raley couldn't identify. He feared it was carrion that even the trio of hounds had rejected.
"In exchange for the beer. I don't like bein' beholden to nobody."
Raley took the bowl thrust at him. "Thanks." His visitor turned and walked down the steps. Raley called after him, "What's your name?"
"Who wants to know?"
"Raley Gannon."
The old man hesitated, then grumbled, "Delno Pickens."
From that morning, they developed a quasi friendship founded on loneliness and a shared reluctance for interaction with other people.
The sum-total value of Delno's possessions wouldn't be a hundred dollars. He was always dragging home something he'd salvaged from God knew where, items he had no practical use for. His cabin was situated on stilts to prevent it from flooding when the Combahee overflowed its banks. Junk had been stuffed into the crawl space beneath the structure, as though to provide a more solid foundation. The area surrounding the cabin was also littered with junk that was never utilized so far as Raley could tell. Collecting it seemed more important to Delno than the articles themselves.
He drove a truck that Raley called Frankenstein because it was made of parts Delno had assembled himself, held together with baling wire and duct tape. It was a miracle to Raley that he ever got the contraption started, but as Delno said, "It ain't pretty, but it gets me anywhere I want to go."
He would eat anything. Anything. Anything he could knock from a tree, trap, or pull out of the river. But whatever he had, once their friendship had been established, he was always willing to share it.
Surprisingly, he was very well read and conversant on subjects which, to look at him, one wouldn't have expected him to have even a passing knowledge of. Raley came to suspect that his hillbilly accent and vocabulary were affected. Like the squalor he lived in, they were protests against a former life.
But whatever that former life had entailed remained Delno's secret. He never mentioned a hometown, his childhood or parents, an occupation, children, or wife. Beyond his hounds, he talked to no one except Raley. Intimate relationships were limited to a stack of old nudie magazines with well-thumbed pages, which he kept on the floor beneath his cot.
Raley shared nothing personal with Delno, either. Not for the first two years of their acquaintanceship. And then one evening at sunset, Delno showed up at Raley's cabin, bringing with him two Mason jars filled with a murky liquid that he'd fermented himself.
"Haven't seen you in over a week. Where you been?"
"Here."
Raley didn't want company, but Delno elbowed his way inside anyway. "Thought you might be needin' a swig or two." Giving Raley one of his scornful once-overs, he added, "Lookin' at you, I'd say my hunch was right. You appear to be in bad shape. Could smell you as I was coming up the steps."
"You're a fine one to criticize someone else's appearance and personal hygiene."
"Who'd you call?"
"What?"
"That blabbermouth that runs the cash register at the store? The one with her hair piled up high, wears long, dangly earrings? Told me you come in there last week, got a handful of change, and fed it into the pay phone outside. Said you talked a few minutes, then hung up, looking like you was ready to kill somebody. Got in your truck and took outta there without even paying for your groceries."
He uncapped one of the jars and passed it to Raley, who sniffed the contents, then shook his head and passed it back. "So, I'm askin'," Delno continued after taking a hefty swallow from the jar, "who'd you call?"
It was dawn before Raley stopped talking. By then, Delno had drained both jars. Raley was simply drained -- emotionally, mentally, physically. It had been a painful but therapeutic catharsis. He had lanced a dozen wounds.
With nothing more to say and no breath left to say it, Raley looked over at the old man, who had listened for hours without making a single comment. The expression on the creased, leathery face was one of profound sadness. His eyes were naked and unguarded for the first time since Raley had known him, and Raley knew he was looking straight into the soul of a man who'd experienced indescribable heartache. It seemed Delno Pickens had collected all the misery and injustice in the world and packed it into that one hopeless gaze.
Then he sighed, and in one of the rare times they'd ever made physical contact, reached across the space separating them and patted Raley on the knee. "Go wash your armpits before the stink of you makes me puke up all that good liquor. I'll cook you some breakfast."
They never again referred to anything Raley had told him that night. It was as though the long night had never happened. But Raley never forgot the bleakness with which Delno had looked at him that morning. And this morning when he raised his head from staring into his coffee mug and looked up at Raley, he was wearing that same expression of despair.
"What's the matter?" Raley's heart hitched, automatically thinking disaster. A 747 loaded with passengers crashing into a mountainside. A presidential assassination. A terrorist attack on the scale of 9/11.
"Don't go and do somethin' crazy, now, okay?" Delno said.
"What happened?"
Muttering dire predictions about "nothin' good comin' outta this," Delno hitched his chin toward the TV.
Raley went over to the vintage set and turned the volume knob, then fiddled with the rabbit-ear antenna in the hope of getting a better picture.
The video remained erratic and the audio was scratchy, but within moments he had a clear understanding of what had happened and why Delno had dreaded telling him:
Jay Burgess was dead.
Copyright © 2008 by Sandra Brown Management Ltd.
Five years ago, after having one drink, Raley Gannon woke up at his friend Jay Burgess's apartment next to a dead woman. He can't remember what happened and loses his career and his fiancé.
Britt Shelley is a reporter always looking for an explosive story. Now Britt wakes up next to a dead man, after one drink, and can't remember anything. The catch is that the dead man is Jay Burgess.
When Raley found out, he kidnapped Britt and they decided to work together to find out what happened to both of them.
1. How in the heck do you pronounce "Raley"? Rally, Rayley, Raleigh? I ended up calling him Riley.
2. Britt was self involved and admitted she never gave a thought to the damage her stories did to others and wasn't above slanting the story to make it more titillating.
3. Did Jay have to be made out as such a horrible person?
4. There was zero chemistry between Raley and Britt, he didn't even like her for good reason!
However, I didn't see the end coming until it was almost there. This started out with a good plot but went in a dozen different directions and ended up nowhere. The last few books I've read by Sandra Brown have not been up to her usual standards. Get this one at the library.
3 out of 3 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted April 9, 2010
I'm a dedicated reader of anything Sandra Brown writes and her books just keep getting better. Smoke Screen is one of her best. The plot twists keep you in suspense until the end. You don't know who the heroes or who the villians are. You don't know "who done it" or even what exactly they did, and you fear for the safety of the main characters throughout. The characters Britt Shelley and Jay Burgess are intelligent yet vulnerable and human. The romance is steamy. This book evoked many emotions for me. It is well researched in regards to the police and fire department and the TV news reporters This is a book you will not want to put down until you are finished and that you will think about even when you aren't reading. I highly recommend this for anyone who likes to pick up a book to forget about the stresses of their real life for a while.
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted February 20, 2010
This was definatly a page turner. I did not want to stop till the end as every time I thought I knew what was going on - it changed!!
Great Read
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.This book kept me turning pages from the moment I picked it up! Every character was well played and served the plot without a hitch. This is definitely one for a personal library. And when you read it, don't think you can figure it all out because as is her gift, Sandra Brown will keep you guessing.
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.TV reporter Brett Shelley thinks she's getting a lead on a big story when she agrees to go to police detective Jay Burgess' home. The next day she wakes up in bed with him and doesn't remember how she got there. Then she notices that Jay is dead.
Jay's friend, firefighter, Raley Gannon, kidnapps Brett and tries to get her to tell him what happened. Britt still can't remember. However the news comes on that the cause of death is suffication and Britt is listed as a suspect.
Brett's first break on TV was covering a fire at the police dept. five years before. Jay and three other municiple employees became heroes when they led others to safety at risk of their own lives.
Raley then tells Brett that he had a similar situation to her not remembering. After the fire at the police dept. Raley was lead investigator for possible arson. He thought that one of the people who died didn't die from the fire but was killed and the fire set to cover it up. He was invited to Jay's home, given a drink by a pretty lady and the next day woke up next to her coprse. With the negative publicity he was taken off the case and the investigation closed. He was then fired from the department.
When they realize that they had both been set up, Raley and Britt set out to clear their names and catch the real killer.
This was very well done. The characters are believable and sympathetic. They form a romantic connection and this helps the plot. The suspense mounts throughout and the reader is carried along with it.
Hard to put down and highly recommended.
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.notprudy
Posted November 25, 2008
I stopped reading Sandra Brown because of the graphic oral sex. She has written some very good mysteries and I hoped this would be one of those. The plot was very good and the story held my interest. The sex was over the top unnecessary. In fact, the ending was ruined by the closing sex act.
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Play Dirty and Smoke Screen show a new more mature Sandra Brown. As I grew up reading her lighter romances and have since grown to love a good thrilling mystery I have really enjoyed her later works. Smoke Screen has interesting characters, takes a plot of out of the headlines of mind altering drugs, and leads you to what some might say a surprising lead villian.
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted January 16, 2012
My very first Sandra Brown book. Ienjoyed the suspense, the intrigue. I was just sesrching for a second from her and choose Standoff. I hope it is just as good. I reccomend Sandra Brown!
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Posted November 6, 2011
Loved the story line...hard to put down
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.2493546
Posted October 14, 2011
This story grabs u from beginning to end i couldnt put it down
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.8954492
Posted August 25, 2011
Kept reading it - couldn't put it down.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.6653412
Posted May 12, 2011
I read a lot of Sandra Brown's novels and have not been disappointed yet. This book was no exception. The plot is fast paced and engaging. The only complaint is that the love story is distracting.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.MaijaMax
Posted January 28, 2011
Sandra Brown is one of my favorite authors...never disappoints...In this book there are so many possible outcomes it kept me guessing until the very end. A GREAT "who-done-it" with some steamy romance thrown in. I highly recommend this book to adults who like a great mystery. It's not a Sandra Brown "romance" novel but, the lead characters...I won't spoil the story, but to say that even guys would be able to handle the steamy parts...
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Posted January 27, 2011
I could not put it down. This is the first book of sandra browns that I read and the suspense was from the very beginning to the very end!
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.bookloverme
Posted May 18, 2010
I Also Recommend:
I have read virtually all of Sandra Brown's novels. While Smoke Screen has an intriging plot I didn't find it as believable as some of her previous works. That said, I looked forward to getting back to it and had no trouble staying with it. There were just too many characters involved and it wasn't too hard to figure out who the real bad guy was long before it was revealed to the other characters. While all of her novels I've read have some sex in them, I found the sex in this book to be offensive. A daughter who enjoys an incestuous relationship with her father - over the top in my book.
0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.smsnow1
Posted March 21, 2010
Truthfully, it was a pretty damn good book. Truthfully, it was a pretty long damn book. It really was entertaining and kept me interested, but not really full of surprises. I felt that it was way too long and drawn out. The plot was great, but revealed way too early. But like I said, overall, a pretty good read. I would recommend it to anyone who can stick with a 533 page book without many twists or surprises.
0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted February 22, 2010
This book was great. Can't wait to read more by Sandra Brown.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Sandra Brown is one of my favorite authors and Smoke Screen was not a let down. Although you know in the very beginning who the killer is, the big mystery comes out at the very end which I did not even suspect at all or even think that something else would/could come out.
I always love how Sandra intertwines her two main characters and writes their involvment so well!
Robertslittleflake
Posted September 9, 2009
I Also Recommend:
Sandra Brown is with out a doubt the best fiction writer of today. Smoke Screen was exciting romantic with a bit of mystery. The charcters were amazing. Kept you guessing. Finished it in 3 days. A great read for anytime.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted August 11, 2009
I just finished my first book by Sandra Brown, and I have found a new favorite author!!! She had me from the beginning, and I couldn't stop turning the pages! Overall a very realistic fiction...full of surprises. She has a talent for bringing the characters to life so that you can imagine them as real people. I loved that fact that each time in the book when it seemed that there was no way out for the character(s), she thought of inventive and ingenious twists to the storyline. Great job! I will be buying back copies of Sandra's books to read what I have missed. Delighted to find a new and interesting author. The fact that she is a Texas-born and bred girl like me makes it even better! :)
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Overview
New York Times bestselling author Sandra Brown returns with a tale of corruption and betrayal, revenge and reversal - where friends become foes, and heroes become criminals in the ultimate abuse of power.
When newswoman Britt Shelley wakes up to find herself in bed with Jay Burgess, a rising star detective in the Charleston PD, she remembers nothing of how she got there...or of how Jay wound up dead.
Handsome and hard-partying, Jay was a hero of the disastrous fire that five years earlier had destroyed Charleston's police headquarters. The blaze left seven people dead, but the death ...