Murder is a Lousy Way to Die

Murder is a Lousy Way to Die, Robert L. Hecker, World Audience, Inc., 2012

This novel is about Benjamin Roan, a government security consultant who someone wants to kill - again.

The book opens with Ben regaining consciousness in the middle of the Nevada Atomic Test Site. Next to him is a woman also just regaining consciousness. A simulated atomic bomb will be tested in just a couple of minutes. If they don't get under cover, now, the bomb will not only kill them, but incinerate them, and then turn them into dust.

After barely surviving the bomb blast, Ben learns that his companion is Taja Singh, owner of the Mojave Research Center, a private lab with Top Secret government contracts. She is also beyond gorgeous. The two have nothing in common, so who was the target, and who was in the wrong place at the wrong time?

If anything illegal was going on the Center, Taja was confident that Roger Stillwell, the Center's day-to-day manager, would know something about it. But he is killed by an unknown assailant right in front of them. As an added wrinkle, Jim Carr, a friend of Ben's, is worried about his sister, Paula, an employee of the Center's marketing department. She hasn't been seen for several days, so he asks Ben if he can ask Taja to look into it. Could the big conspiracy be something "normal" like industrial espionage, or could it be something much more sinister? The end of the book finds Ben and Taja in a small private plane, several thousand feet in the air, with the culprit pointing an Uzi machine pistol at them.

This is a first-rate piece of writing. The author is a veteran writer, and it shows. It is well done from start to finish, and it has plenty of action, along with a bit of romance. The reader will not go wrong with this one.