Friday, March 2, 2012

Buy This Book: The Hurricane Lover

In part The Hurricane Lover is a story about bad, murdering weather. Weather that’s named Katrina in this case, and what happens when people, when entire cities, don’t pay attention. But it’s also about how some people get off on danger. A storm comes and they want to go out and howl. They want to hurl themselves at it and into it. While an entire city is brought to its knees by one of the most dangerous storms ever, there’s someone loose in the streets who’s getting off on it. A crazy, pathological someone who’s using it to make something and take something … like some hapless victim’s identity, even their life. Shay Hoovestahl just wants to report the weather. You know, the pretty details, like how to lash down your patio furniture so the big wind won’t blow it away. Shay’s got no idea as she does the last of her puff pieces before the lights go out what’s ahead of her when the big wind reaches its full terrifying force, the levees break, and the filthy, debris and varmint-choked gulf water rises in the city’s streets. She is as ill prepared as New Orleans and when she finds herself on the trail of this psychotic killer, she’s got to face facts: that puff just won’t cut it.

Gulf Coast climatologist Dr. Corbin Thibodeaux tried to warn her. Prior to Katrina’s landfall, he struggled to get folks to understand the massive threat Katrina posed. But few listened judging from the alarming tone of inanity and ineptitude that’s indicated in the spate of email correspondence that came down from FEMA head Michael Brown. And not even Corbin realizes the unwitting role he’s playing in abetting the killer’s plan as they play hide and seek in the churning walls of one hideous monster of a storm.

The Hurricane Lover is a taut, seductive thriller that reads like the finest in docudrama. The atmosphere is eerily real and the characters are fully and richly drawn. Relationships are poignant and compelling with an undertow of dark humor that comes on like the best of surprises. Joni Rodgers is a masterful storyteller with a gift for writing dialogue that will leave you breathless. I loved this book and highly recommend it. For more about Joni, visit her website.

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