Keeper

Read Keeper Storyline:

In a heartbeat, a crowded auditorium or a city street can become a kill zone, where life and death are separated by a split second. For Atticus Kodiak, professional bodyguard, the object is to keep people alive, and there is no margin for error. Now Kodiak faces his toughest challenge: to protect a woman and her daughter from a killer with a fanatic agenda of his own....Tense, taut, and as brutally real as this morning's headlines, Keeper marks the debut of a talented young writer of tough, unflinching prose—and the beginning of an electrifying new series.From Publishers WeeklyThe world of the professional bodyguard provides the arena for this no-nonsense first novel. Atticus Kodiak, 28, is hired to protect Felice Romero, director of a Manhattan abortion clinic targeted by militant pro-lifers. The pros and cons of abortion are intelligently presented as Kodiak tries to protect his client and her daughter, who's afflicted with Down's syndrome. Soon the bodyguard, whose girlfriend has just undergone an abortion, finds himself personally committed to his client. Bomb threats, shootings and several murders, one particularly tragic, heat up the action, driving the narrative toward an explosive climax at a cemetery. Rucka's prose is clean and visual, his characterizations and dialogue are economical and his storytelling scoots along at a fast clip. A few top crime writers-Robert B. Parker in the Spenser series, for instance-have wandered into bodyguard territory. Rucka has the talent to make it his own, however, especially if he spins this trim tale into a series. Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Library JournalFirst novelist Rucka delivers a story as timely as today's headlines. Atticus Kodiak, a bodyguard by profession, gets caught in the middle of a demonstration on the day he brings his girlfriend to the Woman's LifeCare Clinic for an abortion. The clinic, run by Dr. Felice Romero, has been targeted by the Sword of the Silent, a group of pro-life fanatics run by the megalomaniacal Jonathan Crowell. Because of escalating tensions between the pro-choice and pro-life factions, cooler heads schedule a peace summit of sorts, christened Common Ground. Romero plans to attend, but when she receives some very nasty and specific threats by mail, she hires Kodiak and associates to keep her and her daughter safe. This is a tense and exciting novel filled with some odd characters. Recommended for popular collections.?Dawn L. Anderson, North Richland Hills P. L., Tex.Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.