The Winner

From Library Journal Absolute Power. Total Control. And now The Winner: Baldacci doesn't settle for second best. Here, his heroine, who gets rich after being forced to participate in a fixed lottery, is wanted for murder. Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Kirkus Reviews Irritatingly trite woman-in-periler from lawyer-turned-novelist Baldacci. Moving away from the White House and the white-shoe Washington law firms of his previous bestsellers (Absolute Power, 1996; Total Control, 1997), Baldacci comes up with LuAnn Tyler, a spunky, impossibly beautiful, white-trash truck stop waitress with a no-good husband and a terminally cute infant daughter in tow. Some months after the birth of Lisa, LuAnn gets a phone call summoning her to a make-shift office in an unrented storefront of the local shopping mall. There, she gets a Faustian offer from a Mr. Jackson, a monomaniacal, cross-dressing manipulator who apparently knows the winning numbers in the national lottery before the numbers are drawn. It seems that LuAnn fits the media profile of what a lottery winner should be--poor, undereducated but proud--and if she's willing to buy the right ticket at the right time and transfer most of her winnings to Jackson, she'll be able to retire in luxury. Jackson fails to inform her, however, that if she refuses his offer, he'll have her killed. Before that can happen, as luck would have it, LuAnn barely escapes death when one of husband Duane's drug deals goes bad. She hops on a first-class Amtrak sleeper to Manhattan with a hired executioner in pursuit. But executioner Charlie, one of Jackson's paid handlers, can't help but hear wedding bells when he sees LuAnn cooing with her daughter. Alas, a winning $100- million lottery drawing complicates things. Jackson spirits LuAnn and Lisa away to Sweden, with Charlie in pursuit. Never fear. Not only will LuAnn escape a series of increasingly violent predicaments, but she'll also outwit Jackson, pay an enormous tax bill to the IRS, and have enough left over to honeymoon in Switzerland. Too preposterous to work as feminine wish-fulfillment, too formulaic to be suspenseful. (Book-of-the-Month Club main selection) -- Copyright 1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. A rags-to-riches deal for single mother LuAnn Tyler is deadlier than she ever could have imagined in this #1 New York Times bestselling thriller from David Baldacci. THE DREAM She is twenty, beautiful, dirt-poor, and hoping for a better life for her infant daughter when LuAnn Tyler is offered the gift of a lifetime, a $100 million lottery jackpot. All she has to do is change her identity and leave the U.S. forever. THE KILLER It's an offer she dares to refuse...until violence forces her hand and thrusts her into a harrowing game of high-stakes, big-money subterfuge. It's a price she won't fully pay...until she does the unthinkable and breaks the promise that made her rich. THE WINNER For if LuAnn Tyler comes home, she will be pitted against the deadliest contestant of all: the chameleon-like financial mastermind who changed her life. And who can take it away at will... She is twenty, beautiful, dirt-poor, and hoping for a better life for her infant daughter when she is offered the gift of a lifetime, a $100 million lottery jackpot. All LuAnn Tyler has to do is change her identity and leave the U.S. forever. It’s an offer she dares to refuse...until violence forces her hand and thrusts her into a harrowing game of high-stakes, big-money subterfuge. It’s a price she won’t fully pay...until she does the unthinkable and breaks the promise that made her rich. For if LuAnn Tyler comes home, she will be pitted against the deadliest contestant of all: the chameleonlike financial mastermind who changed her life. And who can take it away at will... From the author of the phenomenally bestselling "Absolute Power" and "Total Control" comes a thrilling new novel of suspense and excitement. When LuAnn Tyler is asked to be part of a crooked lottery scheme, she refuses, even though it would mean millions of dollars. But when she is framed for murder, the single mother is forced to participate. Ten years later, it all comes back to haunt her Major national media ads & publicity (Espionage/Thriller) A woman is offered $100 million to serve as a front for a crooked lottery. The offer is from a gangster who fixes lotteries, the scheme requiring the winner to have certain characteristics, preferably good looking and poor. Waitress LuAnn Tyler accepts, and so begins the adventure of a lifetime as things go wrong. By the author of Total Control LuAnn Tyler, a poor unwed mother in rural Georgia, is asked by a stranger to take part in an illegal lottery scheme. LuAnn unwillingly accepts the winning ticket in exchange for a life abroad. But when she tries to return ten years later, she jeopardizes her life. Some violence. 1997