Austin Marks is proud of the company she’s built and knows it’s one of the best PR firms on the West Coast.  So it’s no surprise when her biggest competitor calls up asking for help.  His client, a pharmaceutical company, has been accused of killing people with tainted drugs.  He needs a crisis team to spin the PR and Austin agrees to take over the job.  But when she directs attention to the software company as being responsible for the mistake, she unknowingly opens a Pandora’s box of global proportions.

THE CLOCK IS TICKING

Clive Garrison has hit rock bottom and is trying to make his way back up. He writes articles for The Weekly, a paper that profits off scandal and sleaze.  So when he hears about the software glitch and learns that the enigmatic Austin Marks is behind the PR spin, he decides to put his investigative powers to the test.  But what he uncovers is much different than he expects.  It turns out Austin’s past is filled with secrets and people who will kill to protect them.

The countdown is on…

A thorough page-turner…
Set in San Francisco, Gerdes’s latest thriller vividly explores the devastating effects of technology. A leading pharmaceutical company comes under fire after several people die because of tainted drugs. When Austin Marks, the head of Mark Communications, steps in for damage control and focuses her attention to a software firm as being responsible for the mistake, she finds herself entangled in a conspiracy of global proportions. With the blame shifting on the software firm, the stakes rise, and Austin’s personal life comes under scrutiny as an investigative journalist sets on to unravel her past. Gerdes is masterfully skilled at building up anticipation and tension. She handles Austin’s interactions with her clients and a love interest with an assured authority to equate her public relation expertize. The traumatic incidents in Austin’s past are revealed gradually, and her character is ripe with all the vulnerability of a flesh-and-blood human being despite her practical, spunky persona. High on anticipation, tension, and suspense, this novel deserves readers’ attention.