The Smell of Fear

Imbued with the corrosive clutches of fear, the emotional roller-coaster of love and the primeval drive to survive, the tightly constructed action is rich with intrigue and tension, and carried by characters of complexity and passion. But Four of the Menagerie of Players -- Michelle Williams: Have you ever been afraid? Really afraid? She is. Now that the politically charged cover-up that ushered in President Matt Igan's re-election for a second term is about to spark. Once the scandal farmers gather the harvest, once the gun dogs pick up the stench of the skunk works she runs, she'll be...Or, Will she? Given her minuet with the narcotic allure of self, when the music starts... Kerry Billings: He's seen too much, and is forced to ee from the stay-and-you-die consequences. To take refuge in Goodland, the time passed-by, island village suspended o the southern-most tip of southwest Florida's Gulf Coast. Where, against all odds, Stephanie Davidson, the exotic, storied descendant of Calusa royalty, becomes a crossword-in-ink part of his life. Only to be run to ground by one of Igan's myrmidons. On the run, fright at the controls, he...Until he and Stephanie... President Matt Igan: A politico of the rst water, he leaves it to a tight nucleus of chamberlains to handle the sordid underside of his presidency -- the pay-to-play turnstiles, the toe-the-line-or-else intimidation of keyhole secrets, the black box Jesuitry, the...But, What Now? Now that he has some real skin in the game. Once the dirt-sifters get saddled up...Once the partisan long knives are out... Once the screws begin to turn... Will the fog of fear hijack him? Will he step into the fast moving tra c? Jackson Charles: It's the brilliance behind his Churchillian mind that makes him Cerberus' (the alpha wolf on the Igan payroll) go-to for the variety of roles he serves (legal-meister, dry cleaner, paymaster, wire-puller...) in a politics-as-blood-sport, zero-sum game of power and survival. Cerberus, too late, he comes to understand that sex is her warhorse. Oh, how he regrets the too-far-over-his-skis hold she has on him. As soon as he's tidied up one last time, he'll nd his promised release. Or, Will he? Now that there's a momentous something else looming outside the lines.