Hotwire

Starred review from May 2, 2011
One crisis after another drives Kava's outstanding ninth thriller featuring FBI profiler Maggie O'Dell (after Damaged). Maggie, who's supposed to be attending a Denver law enforcement conference, helps investigate a crime scene that's left two teenagers dead and five others mysteriously injured as well as bizarre cattle mutilations in the Nebraska Sandhills. A surviving teen's suicide compels Maggie to stay involved, despite the disapproval of her "politically correct and politically connected new boss." Back east, Maggie's hunky romantic interest, Army Col. Ben Platt, joins the Centers for Disease Control's Dr. Roger Bix to look into widespread food contamination in Virginia and Washington, D.C., schools. As the two cases converge, O'Dell and Platt are caught up in all-too-credible bureaucratic machinations. Meanwhile, UFO buff Wes Stotter gets on the trail of some sinister doings in Nebraska. A sizzling plot, achingly real characters, and government officials working their backsides off to save their backsides, all strike as lethally as lightning. 6-city author tour.