cover image Video Cowboys: A Georgia Barnett Mystery

Video Cowboys: A Georgia Barnett Mystery

Yolanda Joe. Simon & Schuster, $23 (256pp) ISBN 978-0-7432-5038-2

Action fans who don't require much to suspend their disbelief should enjoy Joe's third Georgia Barnett mystery (after 2002's Hit Time). The attractive African-American Chicago TV journalist finds herself in the center of a big news story when she and her cameraman, Zeke Rouster, are taken hostage by Brett Andronte, a bomb-wielding man demanding that the local authorities search for his missing daughter. Barnett uses her people skills to persuade Andronte to release her so that she can give his requests more publicity. Once free, she loses no time in ignoring the police's instructions and begins to search for the girl herself, with the help of the eponymous video cowboys-a motley crew of cameramen. The suspense builds as their trail leads them to drug deals, the local mob and a desperate 11th-hour effort to defuse the bomb. Agent, Victoria Sanders.