John M. Dargo

Broken Down Summer: a Brenford Stokes Novel John M. Dargo

When David Watts awakens to find a gun in his face he has little choice but to submit to the criminal kidnapping of his wife and daughter. Then comes the hard part. When you're middle-aged, out of shape, and suffering from a possible heart condition, you're going to need help. But whom do you call? You can't call the police. Who ever you turn to, you better hope it is someone you can trust. And while you're at it, maybe you better question why your wife was chosen as a target in the first place. But in the immediate moment, how do you respond? What do you do? Possibly the best plan you can come up with is to head over to the toilet before you become ill. That might solve the churning in your stomach, but it won't get your family back. In the end your only salvation could be an LAPD detective who's following up on the wrong case. In this first of the new Brenford Stokes detective series, while working another case, our investigator ends up trailing a pair of kidnap victims who fortuitously turn up at his stakeout location. Detective Stokes immediately sets to piecing together the odd set of circumstances to determine just who the real criminals and who the real victims are. Meanwhile, David Watts, the husband and father of the kidnapped pair, puts together a dubious team of semi-professionals to try and raise an enormous ransom. The team starts to disintegrate however, when it's learned that there just might be two ransoms involved. The question becomes... can Detective Stokes solve the puzzle before David Watts becomes the final victim?