Runoff - Softcover

Coggins, Mark

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1461058899 ISBN 13: 9781461058892

Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2011

Synopsis

"How much does it cost to fix an election?"

August Riordan--private investigator, jazz bass player, smart ass with a foolish heart--is going to find out. He's been hired by Leonora Lee, the all-powerful "Dragon Lady" of San Francisco's Chinatown, to investigate the results of the city's recent mayoral election. It seems the Dragon Lady's candidate failed to even carry the Chinese precincts, and she's convinced that someone must have rigged the outcome by hacking the city's newly installed touch-screen voting machines.

A runoff between the two remaining candidates is days away, but it takes Riordan mere hours to find the Director of Elections dead in his office. A visit to the offices of Columbia Voting Systems--the suppliers of the city's touch-screen machines--results in another corpse. A wide range of political interests share a stake in the election, so Riordan's got plenty of suspects.

But when the Dragon Lady's beautiful daughter is attacked after giving Riordan a goodnight kiss, it starts to get personal. Soon, Riordan is in a race not only against the runoff deadline, but against powerful political movers and shakers, Chinatown gang members, and crazed anarchists, with only his techno-savvy, cross-dressing friend Chris to help.

The cost of fixing an election runs to as many lives as it does dollars, and if Riordan isn't careful, the price for un-fixing it may be more than he can afford ...

Winner of the Next Generation Indie Book Award in the Mystery/Suspense category.

About this title

About the Author:

Mark Coggins's work has been nominated for the Shamus and the Barry crime fiction awards and selected for best of the year lists compiled by the San Francisco Chronicle, the Detroit Free Press and Amazon.com, among others. His novels Runoff and The Big Wake-Up won the Next Generation Indie Book Award and the Independent Publisher Book Award (IPPY) respectively, both in the crime fiction category. He lives in San Francisco with his wife Linda.

From Publishers Weekly:

How much does it cost to fix an election? That's the question uppermost in PI August Riordan's mind in his harrowing fourth adventure (after 2006's Candy from Strangers). Leonora Lee, the notorious, near-mythic Dragon Lady of San Francisco's Chinatown, hires Riordan to look into the city's mayoral election after her candidate, Alan Chow, finishes in single digits. Lee suspects someone has been tampering with newly installed touch-screen voting machines. Riordan has until the runoff election, less than a week away, to find the answers. But more than political shenanigans are on hand: the director of elections is found dead in his office, and Riordan soon runs up against Chinatown gang members as well as powerful forces committed to preserving the political status quo. Firmly entrenched in the classic private eye mold of Hammett and Chandler, Coggins exposes the dark underbelly of American politics, but doesn't stoop to political correctness or mindless carnage. (Nov.)
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About this edition

• Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 1461058899
• ISBN 13: 9781461058892
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 312