Cookie O'Shaughnessy has just about everything an adventurous young lady might want; a modest stock portfolio, a semi-legal Mercedes, a partnership stake in a mostly-legal hamburger joint, a wad of cash the IRS doesn't know about and a private detective's license. What she doesn't have is a steady boyfriend or any clients with adrenalin-pumping, danger-laden, gut-twisting cases. Which makes life terribly dull.But that's all about to change.Because when it rains, it pours and suddenly the formerly bored Cookie is hired to do what she does best, go undercover. First by a helpless rape victim being stalked by her attacker, then by a local Godfather who may or may not have turned over a new leaf and finally by the FBI on the trail of an international assassin. Instead of boredom now the big question is whether the former vice cop is in over her head with crooked cops, mobsters, FBI agents that don't completely trust her, secret agents, hit men and rapists. To solve all three cases, O'Shaughnessy is forced to do something she's always tried to avoid; relying on others. And along the way she discovers a talent she never thought she possessed; leadership. I grew up reading comic books in my uncle's toy and hobby store. I didn't know how to read at first so I contented myself staring at the drawings while trying to figure out what the words meant. I believe the first word I learned was "Pow!". "The" wasn't far behind. Then my uncle started sending me home with a comic, often, purportedly so my parents could read them to me, but also because he grew tired of me being in the way of paying customers.I learned two things from that experience; how to manipulate my uncle, which came in handy as I grew older, and how to read at an early age, which served me well my entire life.Reading opened up a whole new world for me; a world of knowledge, entertainment and imagination, and that world lay just across the alley from me at the Dyckman Free Library. By the time I reached the second grade my family had named me "Professor". By the eighth grade I'd demonstrated to Mrs. Dombrowski, the librarian, that had I not only graduated from the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew section, I was well on my way through the adult fiction section and could pass a comprehension quiz on any book I'd already managed to smuggle out of the adult section when she hadn't been looking.In high school my standard answer to a question from any teacher wondering how I happened to know something esoteric or arcane was "I read that somewhere." Which also brought a standard groan from my classmates.Writing is a natural evolution from prolific reading. And when I discovered I could wow both my classmates and instructors with my completed writing assignments, I decided at age sixteen that I would someday become a writer of books.Then life got in the way; graduation, marriage, kids, college (I've earned three degrees), various business pursuits, various stints at journalism, teaching, coaching, school administration and half a dozen hobbies. But I never forgot about becoming a novelist. So I studied people (future characters); their mannerisms, how they spoke, the way they conversed, what motivated them, how they reacted in various situations, how they expressed their hopes and their dreams, the way one wrinkled her nose when she laughed, the way another tended to begin the answer to any question with "basically".And I gathered reams of notes; character descriptions, possible storylines, potential plots, locations, time periods, etc. And I continued to read, sometimes for entertainment, sometimes...
