In Body of Evidence, a sexy romantic political thriller, an archaeologist and a US Attorney find themselves on an explosive, globe-spanning chase full of political intrigue and legal drama. Body of Evidence is the second book in Grant's Evidence Series, where archaeology, politics, and war collide.
And she thought facing a firing squad was bad...
When archaeologist Mara Garrett traveled to North Korea to retrieve the remains of GIs lost in combat, she never imagined she'd be arrested, convicted of spying, and sentenced to death. Her only hope is Curt Dominick, the powerful, ambitious, and infuriatingly sexy US attorney prosecuting her uncle, a former vice president of the United States.
What starts off as a rescue mission quickly morphs into a race across the Pacific. Someone is after Mara, and they'll risk everything to stop her from reaching Washington DC. With betrayal around every corner, Curt and Mara have little reason to trust each other and every reason to deny the sparks between them that blaze hotter than the Hawaiian sun. Still, desire clashes with loyalty when they discover a conspiracy that threatens not only their lives but the national security of the United States.
An anthropologist gets caught up in an international incident and must later testify against her uncle while fighting off romantic urges toward the man who rescued her, but is also her uncle’s lead prosecutor.
The second in Grant’s (Concrete Evidence, 2013, etc.) series is a fast-paced suspense novel with a budding romance. It starts in media res; the protagonist, Mara Garrett, who has dedicated her life to searching for the remains of lost American soldiers, faces a death sentence in a North Korean courtroom. At the last moment, U.S. Attorney Curt Dominick saves Garrett from the firing squad. Dominick is prosecuting her father-figure uncle, who’s a former U.S. vice president, on charges related to war crimes. The following pages are overstuffed with plot twists and action—biological warfare, murder, car chases, political posturing and plenty of explosions. Grant, a four-time Golden Heart Award finalist and archaeologist, uses her experience in the field to describe the excavation scenes carried out by Garrett’s Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command team. The politicking, courtroom questioning and military knowledge are also well-researched. The dialogue between Garrett and her love interest not only builds their relationship, but also gives their characters complexity. As Garrett and Dominick crisscross the country to piece together their mystery while dodging their deaths, a new, yet plausible, wrench gets thrown into the already taut storyline. Inevitably, the couple makes it to Washington, D.C., where the courtroom drama comes to a head and all loose ends are neatly tied.
An exhilarating read that could easily be a blockbuster on the screen.
Nancy Cartwright’s Spotted Cow Entertainment has acquired worldwide motion picture and television rights to Rachel Grant’s thriller novel “Body of Evidence.”
The film will be produced by Cartwright, alongside fellow Spotted Cow executives Peter Kjenaas and Monica Gil, and is currently out to writers to adapt. It is scheduled for a 2017 production start.
Cartwright, best known as the voice of Bart Simpson on “The Simpsons,” launched Spotted Cow as a film/television finance and production company at Berlin.
“Body of Evidence” centers on an archaeologist and a U.S. attorney find themselves on a globe-spanning chase full of political intrigue and legal drama.
“We see, in this extraordinary novel, an entertaining, wild ride of passion and courage,” Kjenaas said. “Rachel has elevated the genre by rooting it in her deep knowledge of archaeology and this gives it an authenticity that is unique. Behind the truly threatening action of a thriller is the even more threatening risk of giving in to desire.”
Spotted Cow’s first project, “In Search of Fellini,” recently wrapped production in Italy. The coming-of-age drama starring Ksenia Solo, Maria Bello and Mary Lynn Rajskub. The film was directed by Taron Lexton and written by Cartwright and Kjenaas.
The company is also producing the one-woman stage show “24 Hours with Mary Lynn Rajskub.”
Grant is repped by Elizabeth Winick Rubinstein at McIntosh & Otis, Inc.
The project is not related to MGM’s 1993 erotic thriller of the same name, which starred Madonna and Willem Dafoe.
