When a threatened architect needs solid help, his strongest ally is a feisty female.
The author's original intent for Escape! was a fast-paced romantic thriller suitable for escaping boredom on a coast-to-coast flight. While watching the vast landscape rolling under the wings, journalist David Emil Henderson visualized a hot fugitive couple running from cold contract killers, eluding pursuit by the FBI and every other police agency along a 2000-mile journey from Lake Michigan to the Pacific Ocean.
Among the plot's surprises was one for the author -- the unexpected emergence of the assertive and spicy Elissa Bennett Pope as the story's brightest star.
Elissa was the child of Latin-immigrant parents in Chicago's wealthiest suburb. Groomed from puberty to become a debutante and wife of a Lake Forest millionaire, she landed a beast who assaulted her over his own failures. Her urge for freedom led to a bitter divorce, with barely enough funds to establish Elissa as a real estate broker, property manager, and (for sanity sake) a summer stock theatrical performer.
Heat soars when California architect Grey Harper arrives in posh Lake Forest to convert an adjacent army base into a $60 million housing development, and Elissa's agency locates a suitable cottage for him to rent for the duration. While they are meeting in that cottage, a strange intruder sets in motion Elissa's most hectic escape ever -- running with Harper for their lives to a stunning climax at his spectacular cliff-top refuge in colorful Carmel-by-the-Sea, California.
Throughout the death race, Elissa is never quite sure whether Harper is actually a brilliant and sane architect (with a California tan, water-blue eyes surrounded by crinkles whenever he smiles, a masculine voice and a wry sense of humor) -- or an eccentric widower with a dark past, who is accused by the FBI of murdering his Chicago client to cover up a major scandal.
Elissa's survival is at stake in either case, and she must rely upon her own wits, her hard-earned cash, and her raw courage, every minute of every day -- and night!
About the Author: DAVID EMIL HENDERSON is an award-winning writer, editor, and publisher (and marketing vp) for newspapers in Illinois, Montana, and California, including those owned by Time, Inc., Gannett, Media News Group, The Tribune Company, and the New York Times. While flying from New York to San Francisco, he set aside a paperback he had purchased at an airport kiosk and gazed out the window. The rolling land beneath the wings started him thinking about a madcap road race to the West Coast, with agents pursuing a man and woman who hardly know each other. Those thoughts ended his boredom on that flight, and this book is intended to produce similar results for all those who read it, flying ot not.
