"The heroine, PJ Santini, is the lovechild of Janet Evanovich and Elmore Leonard." (Toronto Star)
Quirky and witty, HELL ON HEELS is fast-moving recommended reading for those who crave danger and passion in life, but still want to be home by dinner.
Welcome to blistering summertime in Buffalo, New York, scene of the crime. Thirty-three year old P.J. Santini, television news reporter and marginally successful private eye, is on a wild ride between men, her certifiable Sicilian family and insufficient funds notices, ever since her husband died on her literally. But good news, she's inherited the juicy journalistic job of Gerald Sigmund (Siggy), a sleezy investigative reporter who has vanished into thin air. Her first assignment is to find him, dead or alive. She's also inherited his disgusting office, which holds a secret that's worth her life. But she has no idea what that secret is, or who would kill her to get to it. All she knows is that there's a bloody finger in the desk drawer, and it lost most of its value as evidence when she threw up all over it.
Her only comforts are Chianti, four-inch heels, and chocolate. And two men. Fiercely protective Tango Daly is her mysterious, tanned, toned private detective boss, a martial artist with a para-legitimate past tucked lustily into seductive slacks and silk shirts. PJ and Daly play exhilarating mind games when her stilettos get caught in the thick carpet of his office. Upstairs, the place is equipped with more surveillance electronics than Cheyenne Mountainand a bed with satin sheets.
Lanky Johnny Renza is darkly handsome in his trademark cream linen suit, and the first boy P.J. ever loved over and over, all through high school. Now he's a top-notch competitive crime reporter who gets away with plenty because he still knows how to hotwire her with fattening food. As her butt is about to get its own zip code, it's getting harder and harder to concentrate on staying alive.
P.J. Santini lives in an uncharted corner of author Lynne Russell's brain. When P.J. spends long, boring hours stuck in a car on a surveillance job, she amuses herself by counting all the places on her body where she can stash her gun she's up to twelve now and she wishes to thank Lynne for the idea. It helps to make up for the indignity of having to pee into a one-pound coffee can.
Lynne Russell anchored CNN and CNN Headline News from 1983 to 2001, the first woman to solo anchor a daily prime time network newscast. Her long-standing dedication to the people's right to know was recognized in The New York Times, which called her a "just-the-facts stalwart of CNN Headline News". The Times also called her a news anchor with the personality of a professional wrestler, which she took as a compliment. In the Washington Journalism Review, she won a spot as "Best in the Business". A private investigator and former Deputy Sheriff, Lynne now writes romantic crime novels and works out of Washington, D.C.