The Kissing Gourami (ePub)

Max Roper is compelled to use all of his resources to stay alive long enough to last through the mystery of The Kissing Gourami. What starts out a fairly simple and even downgrading assignment, quickly becomes an obsessive search for a brutal killer, leading Roper a skill-numbing chase from Los Angeles to the glittering gambling casinos of Las Vegas, and finally to the chilling temple of marine biology. Max has to deal with the murder of a beautiful blonds by some ingenious unfriendly fish, and thus meets a handsome young golf pro with one eye out for a brunette heiress with hundred million dollars and the other for a shapely redhead who plays with sharks for kicks; an unforgiving acid-mouthed sports reporter; a designing matador; an erudite marine biologist who lost a leg and gained a lifelong enmity; a college cutie who moonlights at a tropical-fish aquarium when she isn't out with a spear-gun killing things; a giant, hulking mad sculptor who used logs for playthings; and over all, the creeping menace of the vengeful animal-like first string executioner of the Las Vegas underworld, Big Vince Geneva. The Kissing Gourami starts when Max Roper's boss, head of the EPT security organization, assigns him to find a ten-thousand-dollar missing dress. In this instance, Max is motivated not merely by duty, but by the gnawing thought that he might find a girl inside it, one whose specifications are mind-blowing enough to warrant his putting his life on the line for it. Max finds out what he knew before, that things are seldom what they seem, and a person can get himself severely beat up and even killed trying to dispute the point.