“Bruneau doesn’t rush the book club members’ backstories, likes, and routines. The reader feels they know these women, which raises the stakes. A believable time frame, intelligent dialogue, an abundance of twists, and escalation in the psychopath’s violence lead to quick page turns... highly recommend.”

KIRKUS REVIEW

This story opens with the mysterious murder of a young woman in an apartment building in Cambridge, followed by the second murder of an early-morning, Black, female jogger on the Boston Common. Dimase is in charge of the Cambridge side of the investigation and eventually determines that the two deaths are connected, along with several other bizarre murders of young women. In a clever game of cat and mouse, Dimase finds that he is matching wits with an MIT professor who has gone off the rails as a serial killer. It is a race against time to unravel clues and save the remaining targets of Dr. Hans Berger as Dimase finally figures out the motive and makes a dramatic rescue while bringing the notorious Phantom Professor to justice.

"In the tight, twisting thriller the Scotus Affair, an affable detective pursues the truth about a far-reaching political conspiracy.”

FOREWORD REVIEWS

This is a split narrative where Dimase's longtime friend, Ben Johnson, a successful Black entrepreneur from Boston, now age seventy, has had a forty-year clandestine affair with Acadia LaFleur, the love of his life, and the matriarch of a powerful multi-generational political family in Louisiana. When Acadia is attacked in a home invasion and ends up in a coma, Ben Johnson's hands are tied, so he enlists Dimase Augustin to go to Louisiana to find out what happened, and why. As Dimase pulls at numerous threads, a second woman with the name Acadia LaFleur, a young elite escort on the run from something connected to Washington DC, turns up brutally murdered in her mother's rural Louisiana home. Eventually, the trail leads back to the nation's capital, where a corrupt cabal of career politicians and FBI agents are plotting the assassination of a Supreme Court justice in order to swing the balance of power on the court. Dimase discovers the link between the two Acadia LaFleurs, and in a thrilling conclusion, foils the attempted coup in a story that could be believable in today's headlines.

Dimase Augustin is now an off-the-books freelance contractor for the FBI. Yet his years in law enforcement and the military have left him jaundiced--not to mention skeptical. Of everyone. Still, after he's tasked by the President of the United States to uncover and expose American powerbrokers compromised by Chinese intelligence operatives, he knows better than to ask questions. At least not too many.

As a pivotal vote on the military defense of Taiwan looms in the senate, Dimase discovers that two key senators from different parties are being blackmailed for their vote, and that the tentacles of corruption extend deep into the DC establishment. Unsure of who to trust, Dimase races against the clock to determine who is behind the production of fifty-four USB drives that contain compromising pornographic material on a small collection of bi-partisan political players. More importantly, he needs to uncover who is in them. When the USB drives go missing, Dimase traces the trail all the way back to an enigmatic connection somewhere within the White House itself. Implications for the sovereignty of the United States ripple though DC as Dimase pulls every thread. The closer Dimase gets to the truth, though, the faster he barrels toward the point-of-no- return. Yet he can't walk away. Especially not when the President's fate--not to mention the fate of the country--now rests squarely on Dimase's shoulders.

In the fourth installment of the Dimase Augustin thriller series, we find Dimase one year out from the shocking events of Threat Analysis. Dimase has continued to evolve into an elite, off-the-books government contractor through his partnership with Bill Larson and their firm, Augustin & Larson Confidential, LLC (ALC).

The book plunges us into a gripping geopolitical web as our hero continues to match wits with Chen Pi, the unofficial chief of the CCP intelligence apparatus in the domestic United States. Pi and his team of undercover spies have discovered a highly classified US government operation, so sensitive that fewer than fifteen people in the entire world are aware of its existence. Unable to call in traditional resources, Dimase is tasked with trying to fit together the random pieces of a seemingly impossible puzzle.

With the credibility of the USA on the line, Dimase races against the clock and across the country in a desperate attempt to preserve America's standing in the world order, even as his CCP counterparts prepare to pull back the curtain on the unthinkable. As all the players converge on the United Nations building in New York City, Dimase is forced to call upon his doubtful, part-time girlfriend, Katie Fallon, for help. Despite her trust issues stemming from Dimase's need for secrecy, the duo join forces to attempt a high-stakes intervention against all odds.

In a heart-pounding rollercoaster of action and intrigue, the climax will satisfy fans as Dimase bests old adversaries, preserves the union for another day, and leaves readers hopeful that somewhere down the road they will be able to enter the world of Dimase Augustin once again.

LAUNCHING 1/8

LAUNCHING 2/5

LAUNCHING 3/5

LAUNCHING 4/2