Blood Money by Doug Richardson

The disillusioned Marine’s plan seems simple enough: steal a refrigerated tractor trailer loaded with frozen blood product; drive the pirated cargo from Reno, Nevada to the Port of Long Beach; collect a million dollars. Yet even the most deliberate plans can go sideways. On his campaign south, the Marine’s “inner idiot” takes charge, leaving a smattering of dead bodies in his wake.

In the dark before dawn, a telephone rings. Kern County Sheriff’s detective Lucas “Lucky” Dey, no stranger to being awakened with bad news, answers the call. But this time, the voice on the phone tells Lucky that his ill-fated younger brother has been gunned down on a blackened desolate highway.

As Lucky chases the former Marine and his black semi-rig into the bowels of Los Angeles, he’s thrust into a landscape of competing agendas. Conrad Ellis, the multi-millionaire entertainment mogul, demands justice for the murder of his starlet daughter. Ambitious federal attorney Lilly Zoller is determined to turn any opportunity into her personal spotlight. Rey Palomino, the morally challenged contractor, colludes with the former Marine hoping to crawl out from under a crushing debt. LAPD detective and dedicated single mom Lydia “Gonzo” Gonzales, reluctantly accepts her assignment to “babysit” the unrestrained Kern County detective hell-bent on avenging his brother’s death at any cost.

A knee-breaking private detective, some unwitting feds, and a coterie of gang-busting L.A. Sheriffs deputies further complicate the scenario and round out the cast of characters in this explosive and
unpredictable thrill ride.

BLOOD MONEY is available from Amazon and Smashwords.

 *****

“Doug Richardson never disappoints. BLOOD MONEY is fast and intense and compulsively readable, populated by an unforgettable cast of characters and a plot that twists so many times you’ll get dizzy. A great story from a veteran tale teller.”—JT Ellison

“Richardson delivers the goods in BLOOD MONEY with his uncanny ability to glimpse into the brutality and instability not only of the criminal mind, but also a darkness in the heroes.”

Reviewed by Maya Fleischmann for IndieReader

 *****

Doug Richardson is the author of three previous novels: Dark Horse, True Believers, and The Safety Expert. A well-known and respected screenwriter, his credits include Die Hard 2: Die Harder, Bad Boys, Money Train, and Hostage. He pens a popular weekly blog at his website and lives in Southern California with his wife, two children and four mutts.

You can learn more about Doug at www.dougrichardson.com. You can contact him at bydougrich@dougrichardson.com. You can also follow him atwww.facebook.com/bydougrichardson and on Twitter: @byDougRich