ZAPPED: A Regan Reilly Mystery
Carol Higgins Clark
Scribner
Mystery
ISBN: 9781416562153

• Read an Excerpt

Regan and Jack Reilly return home from a weekend in Cape Cod where they celebrated Jack’s father’s birthday, wanting nothing more than to enjoy a quiet dinner and a relaxing evening on their rooftop terrace. While Regan lounges on the terrace, Jack heads out to pick up dinner and grab a report from the local police station where he is Head of the Major Case Squad.

The relaxation lasts only a moment for Regan, as the entire city is plunged into the suffocating darkness of a power outage on a hot and steamy summer night. When Regan tries to return to the safety of their Tribeca apartment, she finds that she has been locked out by an intruder and is stuck on the roof. Meanwhile, in the city, crime escalates in the anonymity of darkness.

Also trying to make her way through the darkened city streets is Kit, Regan’s best friend. Making her way, however, is not easy on the crutches she must use due to recent foot surgery. Abandoned at a comedy club by Georgina Mathieson, an associate from a conference she’s attending, Kit calls on Regan, who quickly swoops in to her rescue.

What they discover though is that Georgina is not who she appears to be. It turns out she is wanted for picking up, drugging and then branding unsuspecting men. She was seen leaving the club with a tall, blond individual who may now be her latest victim.

As Regan and Kit race against time to find Chip, the unaware victim-to-be, another couple is plotting how to get back into the empty apartment Regan and Jack have just purchased in order to enlarge their own abode.

Lorraine Lily, an aspiring actress, is desperate to gain entry to the apartment that used to belong to her. Upon returning to the city from an acting stint in England, she is chagrined to find that her soon-to-be ex-husband, Conrad Spreckles, has sold the apartment, making access to a hidden safe suddenly more difficult. The thing is, Lorraine stored information in there that would completely ruin her acting career --- which is about to take off --- if it found its way into the public domain.

Lorraine is not the only one eager to access the empty apartment. Wally, an employee of the contractor doing the work on the Reilly expansion, has discovered the safe and is determined to confiscate any booty it contains for his own personal gain. He goes so far as to talk his friend and cohort Frank into breaking into the apartment and cracking the safe.

As the blackout continues, Jack, Regan, Kit and a growing cast of others all work as hard and as fast as they can to achieve their individual goals. Will they find Chip in time and save him from the diabolical Georgina? Will Wally and Frank be found out as amateur burglars and be locked up for a good long time? Will Lorraine get her personal documents back, or will her career be over before it has barely begun?

Only time will tell how this comedy of errors plays out. The only way to find out who succeeds in their nefarious deeds and who gets swept up by the long arm of the law is to keep reading Carol Higgins Clark’s 11th Regan Reilly mystery.

    --- Reviewed by Amie Taylor

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