JAN ADKINS – Cookie. Harper & Row, hardcover, 1988. No paperback edition.

   Jan Adkins’ Cookie is set in Washington, where Cookie Culler, a 40ish compulsive sort, runs the ranch she inherited from her father. She’s well-liked in the local town, where she’s bedded most of the eligible males, and this comes in handy when brother Benjy comes home.

   It seems his troubled life has taken a turn for the worse. While flying a load of dope across the Mexican border for a syndicate of Eastern dentists, he crashed the plane and destroyed the dentists’ investment. They are not happy, and want at least a piece of Benjy’s hide.

   Cookie will help her brother, of course, but he’s not telling everything and the affair turns explosively deadly, with the ranch under siege. This is an utterly compelling narrative which defies being put down; even the detailed eroticism is integral to the story.

Bio-Bibliographic Data:   Contrary to expectations, perhaps, Jan Adkins is male, and possibly even more surprising (given the last line of Al’s review) is that most of his fiction was written for Young Adults. His only only venture into Crime Fiction was Deadline for Final Art (Walker, 1990), a spy novel featuring Russians and a Star Wars project.

   For more information on the author, including his many works of non-fiction and an impressive list of various awards he’s received, check out his website here.