Jan Coffey The Puppet Master

The Puppet Master

Jan Coffey

Mira, Jan 2009, $6.99

ISBN: 9780778326106

NASA scientist Alanna Mendes remains distraught by the death of her fiancee; in fact she feels getting up everyday overwhelming as she wants him back in her life. Computer guru Jay Alexei is a pariah who no one will touch because he hacked into a top secret data system. Financier David Collier would give up both his kidneys if one was a match for his daughter dying from a rare renal illness.

An unknown person contacts the trio. That individual offers each a deal they cannot refuse. They will receive their fondest wish in exchange for their services to right a wrong. Their benefactor claims nothing illegal is expected of them; just help on a top-secret project. However, the trio begins to question the intended consequences of their actions on innocent people.

This is a fast-paced action-packed morality play that grips the audience from the moment the offer is first made and never slows down. The reader and the lead trio contemplate ethics as no one except their employer and they will know what they did; no one will know who or what principles are violated except perhaps each one's personal values. Jan Coffey is at her suspenseful best with this intriguing deep allegorical thriller that asks whose ethics applies when the masses are kept in the dark as the threesome ponders to do or not to do knowing they will most likely not be caught.

Harriet Klausner