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The Novels
Synopsis of "The Red-Hot Hurricanes"
Songwriting musicians Rachel Monroe and Jaz Fenneman, newly returned from Los Angeles, are back home on the Sonoma coast, enjoying the camaraderie of their band, The Red-Hot Hurricanes, and a well-earned regular gig at ‘Marty’s’, a local club owned by their friend, Martine Chandler.
The Red-Hot Hurricanes’ drummer, Styx Buchanan, a veteran of their previous band, The Hot Rocks, is genuinely clairvoyant. His premonition of an impending event that will affect everyone in their band creates a sense of foreboding among his bandmates. However, when asked what form this ‘tsunami’ would take, or when it would appear, Styx, still groping for more answers himself, can say only ‘something dangerous’ and ‘soon’.
When a handsome ‘ex’ of Rachel’s named Alan Owens is invited to her birthday party, the ‘tsunami’ begins. Jaz and Styx feel that he is there to woo Rachel but Alan, now known as filmmaker ‘Jay Sheffield’, has a broader agenda. He manipulates Rachel into a lunch date and attempts a new liaison with her, which she soundly rejects, but his goals embrace more than romance. He’s hoping to entice novices into a clandestine, fundamentalist sect called The Rievers, of which he is a member.
Soon his accomplices, Clay and Cerisse Bremer, persuade a few friends of Jaz and Rachel’s, including The Hurricanes’ Scottish guitar player, Angus Macleod, that The Rievers offer them a new Utopia.
Styx and Ben Calvin, the newest member of The Hurricanes, have learned over time about The Rievers, and, targeted as enemies by this authoritarian sect, are forced to ‘go to ground’. Using aliases, they flee to London along with Styx’s wife, dancer Gina Godfrey, and new baby daughter, Rhiannon Love Buchanan. Jaz and Rachel, still in California, mistrust The Rievers’ sinister influence, and when Angus MacLeod, on the eve of being relocated to Central America by The Rievers, arrives at their door, frantically begging them to hide him, they offer to do so.
Now, Rachel, Jaz, and their San Francisco FBI contact, ‘Louis’, drawn deeper into the secretive web spun by this group, find Angus a ‘safe house’ in Monterey. A stand-off looms at the Santa Rosa airport as The Rievers, with a private Cessna awaiting them in one hangar, arrive planning to flee to Honduras with acolytes that have become their hostages. The airport becomes the scene of a harrowing nocturnal confrontation as Jaz and Rachel, with the belated help of the local authorities, work to rescue several young friends from The Reivers' grip.
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