Rating: 
Summary: Doug the hero?
Review: This novel is a hilarious, action-packed novel filled with exotic places and characters. Doug, the hero, is an unemployed plant worker who is thrown into the world of international intrigue. Who killed Uncle Russ fifty years ago? This is the mystery Doug has to solve. Doug whose only knowledge of Russ is what others tell him. Are the facts twisted? I am the travel writer at http://www.bellaonline.com/site/southeastasia. I recommend Relative Danger to all readers as a must read book.
Rating:
Summary: A naive hero drives a wacky plot
Review: This rollicking, globetrotting adventure starts off with an unlikely protagonist. A Pottsville, Pennsylvania, working-class hick with a vast store of ignorance and not much curiosity, Doug Pearce's life takes a sharp turn into the unknown when he loses his brewery job and answers an intriguing summons from a strange elderly woman.Edna Bowers, a friend of Doug's long-dead, black-sheep Uncle Russ, wants Doug to look into his uncle's murder in Singapore and - who knows? - maybe even discover what happened to the fabulous red diamond he had...acquired, somehow, maybe. First stop, Casablanca, where Russ probably picked up the jewel in the weeks before his death in 1948. Edna has given Doug some names and a fairly generous expense allowance and in no time he meets Aisha al-Kady, a stunning, sophisticated heiress, and Sergei Nikolaisen, a suave and worldly retired museum curator. Then one of his contacts dies and two inept thugs corner Doug in an alley. But Aisha's fond farewell is almost enough to put this out of his mind as he continues his quest to Egypt where a sojourn in jail dims that warm glow. Doug's not finished yet, though, and his further adventures with Aisha and Sergei include a couple of gun battles, a chase across the Cairo rooftops, an enlightening trip to the Pyramids, a try at rugby, a ransom at Raffles Hotel in Singapore, and more. Naturally he's spoiled for Pottsville after all this and readers will hope Benoit has something more in store for his resourceful hero. A very funny, suspenseful and entertaining debut.
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