Buy this book: The Hurricane Lover

The Hurricane Lover, in part, is a story about bad, murdering weather. Weather that’s named Katrina in this case, and what happens when people, when entire cities, don’t pay attention. It’s about how some people get off on danger. They want to go out and howl. They want to hurl themselves at it and into it. As an entire city is brought to it’s knees by some of the most dangerous weather ever, they use it to make something and take something … like some hapless victim’s identity, even their life. Shay Hoovestahl just wants to report it. You know, the pretty details, like how to lash down your patio furniture so the big wind won’t blow it away. Shay’s got no idea as she does the last of her puff pieces before the lights go out what’s ahead of her when the big wind reaches its full terrifying force, the levees break, and the filthy, debris-choked gulf water rises in the city’s streets. She is as ill prepared as New Orleans and when she finds herself on the trail of a psychotic killer, she’s got to face facts: that puff just won’t cut it.

Gulf Coast climatologist Dr. Corbin Thibodeaux tried to warn her. Prior to Katrina’s landfall, he struggled to get folks to understand the massive threat Katrina posed. But few listened judging from the alarming tone of inanity and ineptitude that’s indicated in the spate of email correspondence that came down from FEMA head Michael Brown. And not even Corbin realizes the unwitting role he’s playing in abetting the killer’s plan as they play hide and seek in the churning walls of one hideous monster of a storm.

The Hurricane Lover is a taut, seductive thriller that reads like the finest in docudrama. The atmosphere is eerily real and the  characters are fully and richly drawn. Relationships are poignant and compelling with an undertow of dark humor that comes on like the best of surprises. Joni Rodgers is a masterful storyteller with a gift for writing dialogue that will leave you breathless. I loved this book and highly recommend it.