Southern Poison-T. Lynn Ocean

Southern Poison
T. Lynn Ocean
St. Martin’s, Sep 2008, $24.95
ISBN: 9780312383466

Jersey Barnes left the military SWEET (Special Worldwide Unit for Entertaining and Exterminating Terrorists) to open up the Barnes Agency, a personal security firm. She still owns the security firm, but never does field work anymore. Instead she focuses on a bar she owns in Wilmington, North Carolina with her hunk of a partner Duke “Ox” Oxendine, whose former wife and teenage daughter have arrived.

However, Jersey becomes irate when her former military handler Ashton informs her that he invoked her retirement contract clause of calling her back to active duty. Internet chatter evidence points towards a terrorist plot to disrupt the Military Ocean Terminal at Sunny Point, North Carolina, the largest Ammo plant. She will go undercover working at the roach coach selling sandwiches in an attempt to uncover who is behind the planned attack, when and how.

When the military drafts former soldier Jersey as a temporary part of the “all” volunteer army, the brass did not understand the SWEET deal they got; instead of just Jersey, they get her and her eccentric crew. Readers will enjoy their antics as they struggle to prevent a terrorist incident at strategic Sunny Point port. However, as with SOUTHERN FATALITY, the key to this amusing yet serious regional thriller is the crew. Fans will appreciate Jersey's personal moralist Ox, his even deeper moralist daughter, former Federal IT guru Soup, and the heroine's bluffing dad Spud in this fast-paced Carolina caper; just don’t eat from the roach coach when Jersey makes the sandwiches.

Harriet Klausner