Ranked #1 in the World
Blue Rain
Tuesday, July 13th, 2010
Reporter Johnny Rose investigates the murder of a Vietnamese man who recognized a customer in his restaurant as an American pilot, officially killed in Laos. A tale of war veterans involved in drug trafficking.
Title: Blue Rain
Author: Charles L. (Chuck) Freadhoff is a 1984 Thunderbird graduate. He is a vice president of Capital Research and Management Company’s Fund Business Management Group and director of media relations for The Capital Group Companies. Prior to joining Capital in 1995, Chuck was an international economics and trade writer for Investor’s Business Daily in Los Angeles. Before that, he was a medical and general assignment reporter for The Stars and Stripes in Darmstadt, Germany. He has written three suspense novels, “Codename: Cipher,” “Blue Rain” and A Permanent Twilight.
Publisher: Harpercollins (1999)
Price: $19.99
Description: Hardcover
ASIN: B001QHW0NG
Information: www.amazon.com.
Johnny Rose is the kind of investigative reporter whose stubborn insistence on doing his own thing has already lost him at least one job at a big paper and threatens his tenuous hold on what may be his last one. When he hears the fear in the voice of his runaway niece Sara, who’s never asked for his help before, he knows she’s in trouble. But by the time he gets to her, it’s too late. She’s dead, killed by arson in an abandoned squat where she’s been living with a couple of friends.
From Publishers Weekly: “Freadhoff’s slick, well-written debut is lent an air of authority and authenticity by recent events in Europe, most notably the reunification of Germany. Holding a U.S. Army major hostage, terrorists have gained control of a cache of nuclear weapons housed in an Army ammunitions depot in Ochsenburg, Germany, and have threatened to detonate the weapons unless infamous terrorist Hamid al Hamani is released from prison. Jonathan Cane, a journalist for an L.A. newspaper who had once lived in Ochsenburg, requests and is granted the assignment. As Cane delves deeper into the incident, he raises myriad questions. Why are Henry’s captors attempting to free Hamani, previously denounced by his own comrades? And why don’t the terrorists simply take the explosives and flee? Is it really Hamani they want or are they using his release as a cover for some other demand? As Cane approaches the truth, he realizes he is also perilously close to his own demise. Freadhoff builds suspense well throughout, but a too hasty resolution detracts from his otherwise taut novel.”