The Dinosaur Club

In this wryly twisting, engaging tale, 1996 Edgar Allen Poe Award winner Heffernan (for Best Original Paperback: Tarnished Blue) revisits the time-honored theme of one man battling an avaricious system. Jack Fallon, lifelong employee and now vp-sales at Waters Cable, must confront the treachery of his grasping wife of 24 years and his materialistic college-aged kids after he warns them that he may fall victim to management's scheme for axing all highly paid execs over 50. When his wife leaves him for a money-grubbing dentist, the gritty Vietnam hero determines to reinvent himself. He gets an unforeseen boost when Carter Bennett, a ruthless 30-something Princeton- and Wharton-educated hatchet man, hires savvy, sexy young corporate attorney Samantha Moore to protect the corporation from age discrimination litigation: lovely Samantha finds herself strongly attracted to Jack and morally disgusted by the firm's downsizing operation. Organizing the loyal gang of corporate expendables into a plucky army of resistance fighters who call themselves ""The Dinosaur Club,"" Jack fights back with laudable panache. True love blossoms between Jack and Samantha as she helps the Dinosaurs take on the corporation. Insider trading, fraudulent government contract practices, electronic business espionage and international industrial intrigue--it all crashes down with poetic comeuppance for Jack's ex, his spoiled brats and the boardroom bad guys. Heffernan's suburban fantasy of betrayal, retribution and May/September romance above the 40th floor is a highly entertaining read. (June)