Hard Rain (Vin Cooper Book 3) » (Unabridged, 12 CDs, 14 hrs. 8 min.)

David Rollins is a former advertising creative director who lives in Sydney, Australia. He is the author of The Death Trust and Knife Edge, both international bestsellers. Brilliance Audio and Bantam Books will publish Knife Edge in 2008.

As a special investigator for the U.S. Air Force, Vin Cooper thought he’d seen it all. But even he can’t believe his eyes this time. Colonel Emmet Portman, U.S. air attaché to Turkey, wasn’t simply murdered in his Istanbul residence. He was carefully dismembered, his body parts laid out like an exploded diagram —
except for twelve missing bones, three of which show up later at another grisly murder scene. And when it turns out that the dead colonel happened to have the second victim’s business card in his Rolodex, it looks as if there’s a serial killer at large.
But looks can be deceiving. As Vin and Special Agent Anna Masters investigate, inconsistencies crop up that cast doubt on their theory of the case — and hint at a shadowy plot even darker and more sinister than two grotesque connected slayings. Is someone trying to shatter fragile hopes for Middle East peace, topple governments by any means necessary, and eliminate anyone who gets in the way?
Onetime lovers, now the uneasiest of partners, Cooper and Masters struggle to put aside their personal baggage as they follow a trail of carefully concealed clues from Istanbul to the Iraqi desert and beyond. As evidence of a conspiracy snakes up the chain of command, these two seasoned special agents must dodge bullets, defuse bombs, and avoid being buried alive in their frantic effort to short-circuit a plan for world domination more audacious and far-
reaching than they could ever have imagined.

Publishers Weekly

Maj. Vin Cooper, a special agent, or “internal affairs cop,” for the United States Air Force office of special investigations, and special agent Anna Masters, who recently broke up with Vin and is now “swinging from the chandelier for some attorney from the JAG corps,” deal with one lethal threat after another in Rollins's rip-roaring third novel to feature the tough, wisecracking Cooper (after The Death Trust and A Knife Edge). Vin and Anna have come to Istanbul to investigate the murder of Col. Emmet Portman, the U.S. air attaché to Turkey, who's been chopped into small pieces and laid out like a model airplane kit that requires assembly. As the pair seek answers in Turkey and later Paris and Iraq, they leave behind a lot of bodies, both friend and foe. The convoluted trail leads them to a plot involving many countries, none of which has America's best interests at heart. The exciting, violent ending promises more thrills to come. (Mar.)