Vance Courage and Lauren Gold are back on their old turf in Miami but their relationship has been strained recently.
Vance's 13-year-old nephew, Ethan Jones, confides that detectives came to the house questioning his mom about a murder. The victim, Silk Hart, is a bestselling erotica writer whose body was discovered in a Miami Beach hotel room. Vance needs Lauren's help to figure out how his sister is involved.
Lauren agrees to dig for information but soon discovers there's a news blackout. Who killed the story? And why? With his nephew in renal failure and a killer on the loose, multiple clocks begin to tick. As clues start to point in a certain direction Vance has to ask himself the unthinkable. Could his sister be the killer?
The Bottom Line: Money For Nothing is a provocative, tightly-wound crime thriller that seems destined for its own streaming series. A must-read for both new fans and the series’ growing fan base. Karen S. Gordon’s hotly anticipated sequel to Sick Money comes as the crime hits close to home and the stakes are higher than ever.
Money For Nothing finds Vance, a retired ex-cop turned attorney, and partner Lauren, returning to their old stomping grounds in Miami. Vance is enjoying some of the spoils of the cartel cash that he and Lauren salvaged from a boat sunk offshore in Biscayne Bay. But he’s not using it to live a flashy lifestyle. Rather, Vance is preoccupied with trying to find a kidney donor for his wise-beyond-his-years nephew battling renal failure. But when his nephew — hilariously described as “thirteen going on social security” — reveals during a visit that Vance’s sister, Kathy, was recently questioned by detectives over the murder of erotic-fiction author Silk Hart, his focus shifts to Kathy and unearthing how she could possibly be involved.
When he enlists Lauren’s help, she discovers that Hart was in the process of suing another author over plagiarism. And, it turns out, Hart had as many haters as she had supporters. Curiously, despite a very public dispute, there’s no news about her death. As Lauren and Vance dig deeper and Kathy’s connection is revealed, Vance is forced to consider the unthinkable. Could his sister be a killer?
Gordon’s storytelling in this award-winning series is always engaging, and the relationship between Vance and Lauren – which is on shaky ground – keeps readers clamoring for more. But Gordon takes it up a notch in this fifth series installment, with an ultra-current plot line and slightly meta twist: both the victim and her rival are authors of erotic “fan fiction,” a sub-genre where writers take a popular fiction character and place them in a new plot. Erotic fan fiction sub-genres typically have rabid fan bases, and Gordon has smartly honed in on it with a verisimilitude that feels fresh and provocative – and destined to be a new limited series on TV.
Do yourself a favor. Put down the remote control and pick up Money For Nothing instead.
"A brilliantly woven plot mixed with a rich cast of memorable characters make Karen S. Gordon's MONEY FOR NOTHING a must-read for anyone in search of an unputdownable reading experience." — Ryan Steck, The Real Book Spy
