Don't Look Down

by Jennifer Crusie, Bob Mayer

Overview

New York Times bestselling author Jennifer Crusie teams up with USA Today bestselling author Bob Mayer to write a sizzling, high-octane romantic adventure about a straight-talking woman and a straight-shooting man…

Lucy Armstrong is a director of television commercials who's just been recruited to finish a four-day action movie shoot. But she arrives on the set to discover that the directing staff has quit, the make-up artist is suicidal, the stars are egomaniacs, the stunt director is her ex-husband, and the lead actor has just acquired as an advisor a Green Beret who has the aggravating habit of always being right.

Green Beret Captain JT Wilder had thought that hiring on as a military consultant for a movie star was a good deal: easy money and easier starlets. Instead he has to babysit a bumbling comedian, dodge low-flying helicopters, and resist his attraction to a director who bears a distracting resemblance to Wonder Woman. Then the CIA calls and he realizes that somebody is taking "shooting a movie" much too literally.

Full of suspense and humor, non-stop action and fast-paced dialogue, Don't Look Down is the perfect blend of male and female, adventure and romance, Mayer and Crusie.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781429903356
Publisher:	St. Martin's Publishing Group
Publication date:	04/01/2007
Sold by:	Macmillan
Format:	eBook
Pages:	384
Sales rank:	117,741
File size:	326 KB

About the Author

JENNIFER CRUSIE is the New York Times, Publishers Weekly, and USA Today bestselling author of Tell Me Lies, Crazy for You, Welcome to Temptation, Faking It, Fast Women, and Bet Me.

BOB MAYER is a former Green Beret and the USA Today bestselling author of thirty-two novels under his own name and the pen names Robert Doherty and Greg Donegan. He has over two million books in print.

Jennifer Crusie was researching her dissertation on the differences in the way men and women tell stories when she got sidetracked into writing romance novels.

Her first book was published in 1993 (which pretty much finished off any hope of her getting that PhD) and her twenty-second book, Maybe This Time, came out in August of 2010, all of which she considers a minor miracle, especially since she is also a New York Times, USA Today and Publishers Weekly bestselling author and a two-time Rita award winner.

Hometown:

Ohio

Date of Birth:

1949

Place of Birth:

Ohio

Education:

B.A., Bowling Green State University, 1973; M.A., Wright State University; Ph.D., Ohio University, 1986

Read an Excerpt

Chapter One Lucy Armstrong was standing on the Eugene Talmadge Memorial Bridge when she first spotted the black helicopter coming at her through the sunset. Based on the rest of her day, that wasn’t going to be good. Twenty feet to her right, her assistant director, Gleason Bloom, ignored the chopper and worked the set like a depraved grasshopper, trying to organize what Lucy had already recognized as her career’s most apathetic movie crew. Her gratitude to Gloom for his usual good work was only exceeded by her gratitude that he hadn’t yet seen that the movie’s stunt coordinator was Connor Nash, now half hidden behind his black stunt van, arguing with a sulky-looking brunette. Of course, Gloom was bound to notice Connor sooner or later. I’ll just point out that it’s only four days, she thought. Four lousy days for really good money, we check on Daisy and Pepper, we finish up somebody else’s movie, we go home, no harm, no foul— Off to the west, the helicopter grew closer, flying very low, just above the winding Savannah River. All around were brush and trees, garnished with swamp and probably full of predators. “The low country,” Connor had called it, as if that were a good thing instead of a euphemism for “soggy with a chance of alligator.” And now a helicopter— Lucy rocked back as fifty-some pounds of five-year-old niece smacked into her legs at top speed, knocking her off balance and almost off her feet. “Aunt Lucy!” “Pepper!” She went down to her knees, inhaling the Pepper smell of Twizzlers and Fritos and Johnson’s baby shampoo as she hugged the little girl to her, trying to avoid the binoculars slung around Pepper’s neck. “I am so glad to see you!” she said, rocking her back and forth. Pepper pulled back, her blond Dutch Boy haircut swinging back from her round, beaming face. “We will have such a good time now that you’re here. We will play Barbies and watch videos, and I will tell you about my Animal of the Month, and we will have a party!” Her plain little face was lit with ecstasy. “It will be so, so good!” She threw her arms around Lucy’s neck again and strangled her with another hug, smashing the binoculars into Lucy’s collarbone. “Yes,” Lucy said, trying to breathe and hug back, thinking, Great, now I have to play with Barbies. She pulled back to get some air and said, “Nice binoculars!” as she tried to keep from getting smacked with them again. “Connor gave them to me,” Pepper said. “I can see everything with them.” “Good for Connor.” Over Pepper’s head Lucy saw the helicopter cut across a bend in the river, zipping through an impossibly small opening between two looming oak trees. It’s heading right for us, she thought, and whoever is flying that thing is crazy. Then Connor raised his voice and said, “No,” and she looked over to see the young brunette step up into his face, giving as nasty as she got. Lucy thought, Good for you, honey, and stood up, smiling at Pepper. “But I have to work first, so—” “I will help you work,” Pepper said, clinging to her, her smile turning tense. “I will be your assistant and bring you apples and water.” Lucy nodded. “You will be a huge help.” She took the little girl’s hand and looked back at Connor. After kicking herself twelve years ago for having been so stupid as to marry him, looking at those broad shoulders and slim hips now reminded her why her brain had gone south when she was twenty-two. Good thing I’m smarter now, she thought, and looked again. The way he was talking to the brunette, the way she leaned into his comfort zone, they were sleeping together. And she looked to be about twenty-two. That must be his target age, she thought. I should tell Gloom that, he’ll laugh. Gloom. She looked back toward the set and didn’t see him, but the helicopter was now zipping underneath one of the port cranes, then banking hard toward the bridge. Lucy shook her head, trying not to be impressed. The pilot probably had Top Gun in permanent rotation on his DVD player. Whatever happened to the strong, silent type? “Aunt Lucy?” Pepper said, her smile gone, her face much too worried for a five-year-old. “You’ll be a huge help,” Lucy said hastily. “Huge. Now, where is your mama—Ouch!” Her head snapped back as Gloom yanked on her long black braid from behind. “Connor Nash,” he said, and she dropped Pepper’s hand and grabbed the base of her braid to take the pressure off her skull. “Yeah.” Lucy tried to pry her braid out of his hand. “I was going to mention that.” “Really? When?” “As late in the game as possible. Which appears to be now.” “What were you thinking?” Gloom glared at her, his gawky form looming beside her. “Gloom?” Pepper said, and he looked down and let go of Lucy’s braid. “Peppermint!” He picked her up, swooshing her up to hug her, almost getting beaned by her binoculars as he smacked a kiss on her cheek. Pepper giggled, happy again, and wrapped her arms around his neck. “I’m so glad you’re here,” she said, strangling him. “We will have a party.” “You bet.” Gloom peeled one of her arms away from his windpipe. “Tell you what, go get your mama and tell her we need to make plans. There will have to be a cake—” “Yes!” Pepper said, and tried to wriggle her way to the ground. Gloom set her down, and she was off like a shot, blond hair flying and binoculars bouncing as she headed for the craft services table set up near Connor’s van, the source of apples and candy and water bottles and, evidently, her mother. Lucy frowned up at the sky. “We didn’t order a helicopter today, did we?” Gloom yanked her braid again. “Ouch. Stop that.” “Now about that Aussie bastard,” Gloom said. Down the bridge, Connor looked up at them, distracted by the commotion, and saw Lucy for the first time. His face lit up—God, he’s beautiful, she thought—and then he started up the bridge to her. “Connor called and offered us an obscene amount of money to finish this thing and I said no,” Lucy said, talking fast so that Gloom wouldn’t say, “Hello, dickhead,” when Connor reached them. The brunette went after Connor, catching his arm, and he stopped and tried to shake her off. Gloom’s dark brows met over his nose. “If you said no, why—” “And then Daisy called and said to please come down because we hadn’t seen her and Pepper in so long, and I said no, I’d send her the money to come visit us. . . .” The brunette held on, but Connor yanked free, making her stumble back as he came up the bridge, oblivious to the chopper closing in on them. He kept his eyes on Lucy, everything in him focused completely on his objective. And that’s why I married you, Lucy thought. “So why are we here?” Gloom said. “Because Daisy put Pepper on the phone and I told her we weren’t coming and she cried.” Lucy switched her attention back to Gloom. “Pepper’s not a crier, you know that, Gloom, but I understand that you hate Connor, so you go tell Pepper we’re not staying. Take Kleenex. Meanwhile, I’ll explain to Connor why he’ll be directing these last four days himself instead of paying us a small fortune to do what we can do in our sleep.” “What?” Gloom said and turned to follow her eyes and saw Connor. “Oh, fuck.” “Be nice,” Lucy said. “He—” She broke off as the bubble-shaped helicopter suddenly gained altitude and swooped over the closest bridge tower, sharp against the red sun. Connor stopped and looked up at it and then got an odd look on his face, anger or surprise, she couldn’t tell. Gloom stepped closer to her as the chopper dived to the middle of the bridge and abruptly slowed, coming to a perfect hover just to the east, well out of the way of the cables that lined the roadway. Then it pirouetted smoothly, moved sideways down the bridge, and to the ground. Pepper came running back from craft services to say, “Wow,” as the chopper touched down lightly next to the roadway. “There’s no helicopter on the shooting schedule,” Gloom said, frowning. “And that one has—is that a machine gun?” Lucy peered at the ugly-looking contraption bolted to the right skid. “I think so.” She bent to pick up Pepper. “I don’t think it’s on Connor’s schedule either. Look at him.” Connor’s shoulders were set as he reversed direction and headed for the chopper, walking past the brunette without even acknowledging she was there until she grabbed his arm again. Honey, never interrupt him when he’s on a mission, Lucy thought and looked back at the helicopter. A man got out, ignoring the blades whooping by just over his head, broad shouldered and slim hipped in Army camouflage, with none of Connor’s electricity or glossy good looks, just tan and solid in the middle of the noise and wind. He walked forward out of rotor range and halted to look back at the chopper, his lantern jaw in profile, completely still in the storm, and Lucy lost her breath. “Tell me that’s my action star,” she said. Another man dressed in jeans, a black T-shirt, and flip-flops got out of the copter on the other side, tripping over the skid as he stumbled out from under the blades. Then he stood up and joined the quiet man on the edge of the road, swaggering as he went. “That’s your star,” Gloom said. “Bryce McKay. Medium-famous comedian. Great at pratfalls. Action? Not so much.” “Right,” Lucy said, but her eyes went back to the quiet man, so much like Bryce physically, so much his opposite in every other way. Anybody that still had to have his act together. None of that macho garbage that had driven her away from Connor after six months of marriage. Connor shook off the brunette and moved down the bridge to the helicopter, his focus on the newcomer, his hands out at his sides. Hell, Lucy thought. He’s already gunning for this guy. The quiet man turned to face him. Connor stiffened, and the other man stared back, not moving. “Oh, boy,” Gloom said happily. “Oh, great,” Lucy said. “And they’re both thinking, ‘Mine’s bigger than yours.’ ” “I love this,” Gloom said. “It’s like High Noon. Maybe somebody will finally outdraw that son of a bitch.” “Yeah, that would be good except this is real life, not a Western,” Lucy said, exasperated. “Why don’t they just pull them out and show them to each other?” “Pull out what?” Pepper said. “Their binoculars.” Lucy put the little girl down. “I have to go see what’s going on, baby. You wait here with Gloom.” “I want to come,” Pepper said, her smile gone. “Oh, I do, too.” Gloom picked up Pepper. “I think this is going to be my party.” “Try to control your joy,” Lucy said and headed down the bridge to contain the disaster, trying not to admire the quiet man for remaining so still in the midst of the chaos. Copyright © 2006 by Argh Ink and Robert J. Mayer. All rights reserved.

Editorial Reviews

The Barnes & Noble Review
Bestselling authors Jennifer Crusie and Bob Mayer scramble their usual genres -- romantic comedy and action thrillers, respectively -- into one tasty omelet, seasoned with plenty of sex, romance, action, and danger.

Movie director Lucy Armstrong and Green Beret captain J. T. Wilder don't exactly get along at their first meeting on the set of the movie Don't Look Down. Lucy, a director of dog food commercials in New York, has come to the Savannah swamps to finish up the last four days of shooting -- only to discover that her ex-husband is the stunt director, her sister seems to be on drugs, and the stars are nutty egotists. Lucy chalks this up to the usual movie production chaos; then the script for this so-called romantic comedy takes a mysterious and abrupt right turn into action-adventure land -- complete with helicopters, Navy SEALs, and exploding cars! To complicate things further, the CIA contacts J.T. and lets him in on a secret: A terrorist with the Russian Mob is using the movie as a money-laundering scheme and clearly has his own reasons for the script change. Then the body count starts to rise...

We won't give away the rest of the plot, but the character of Lucy's five-year-old niece, Pepper, is terrific, and the dynamics between Lucy and Wilder are thoroughly enjoyable. Ginger Curwen

bn.com

The pairing of readers Lawlor and Raudman misses more than it hits in this uneven audiobook. Lucy Armstrong, a director of dog food commercials, accepts the job of helming the last four days of an action-adventure movie. Before she has a chance to spend time with her sister, Daisy, who is also working on the film, Lucy is soon embroiled in a real-life adventure involving money laundering, kidnapping, the Russian mob, a one-eyed alligator and a most unexpected romance. In theory, the idea of having two readers portraying the male and female characters of a novel, as well as rotating chapters to correspond with the book's alternating viewpoints, would seem like a good one. Unfortunately, the audio suffers from poor production values. Raudman gives a rich, intimate sound to her reading, but Lawlor seems to be stuck in the next room for his, thus destroying any attempt at realistic dialogue between the characters. The book itself is a fun bit of fluff, and each reader individually gives a fine performance, but the contrast in sound quality and acting styles proves more distracting than effective. Simultaneous release with the St. Martin's Press hardcover. (Reviews, Feb. 27). (Apr.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Publishers Weekly

Noted romance/chick-lit author Crusie (Bet Me) and adventure author Mayer (Z: A Dave Reilly Novel) team up with mixed results in this not-really-a-romance, not-really-a-thriller offering. Sensible film director Lucy is recruited to finish up a movie shoot and encounters hard-living Green Beret J.T. Wilder. The one thing they have in common is that neither of them really wants to be there. Lucy is miserable dealing with her ex-husband, the stunt coordinator for the film, and J.T., who has been hired as an advisor, ends up baby-sitting a wannabe action star. The whole production is shrouded in mystery, right down to its sources of financing (turns out it's a money-laundering scheme for a terrorism supporter). Romantic intrigue among cast members, bumbling CIA agents, a swamp sniper, and Lucy's family problems round out a detailed and often overly busy plot. While the writing is seamless, fans of Crusie will miss her usually snappy style and steamy love scenes. Still, her name alone is bound to generate demand. For most public libraries. Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

Mayer and the usually irresistible Crusie (Bet Me, 2004, etc.) stumble in this romantic action film of a novel about a woman trying to direct a romantic action film set near Savannah, Ga. After the previous director succumbs to a heart attack, Lucy Armstrong agrees to direct for the shoot's last four days the movie on which her ex-husband Conner is stunt coordinator, mainly because she wants to spend time with her sister Daisy, also working on the movie, and five-year-old niece Pepper. Lucy is worried about Daisy, who seems drugged out, and Pepper, who seems lonely (and unbearably, unbelievably precocious). Lucy learns from her assistant that an action ending has been tacked on to the romantic comedy. Although the ending, requiring dangerous stunts, makes no sense, she is pressured by the movie's mysterious Irish backer Finnegan to finish filming. Meanwhile, Conner says he wants to get back together, but Lucy-wisely-no longer trusts him and finds herself more attracted to the leading actor's new stunt double, a Special Forces macho warrior named J.T. Wilder. Lucy does not know that J.T. has been assigned by the CIA to track down Finnegan and the Russian mobster to whom he owes 50 million dollars' worth of Mexican phallic sculptures. J.T. wins Pepper's heart when he gives her a Wonder Woman Doll. It doesn't take him much more to win over Lucy, with whom he's soon having torrid sex. Meanwhile, scary things are happening that may or may not be accidents. Throw in a one-eyed pregnant alligator and a sniper sharing the nearby swamp and the danger quotient rises, especially when Pepper is kidnapped. Despite plenty of blood-and-guts violence, there's not much mystery to pull the reader along.Oddly wimpy and not much fun.

Kirkus Reviews

This first collaboration between bestselling romance writer Crusie and adventure-thriller writer Mayer is a rare delight. Mayer's delectably dry sense of humor perfectly complements Crusie's brand of sharp wit, and together the two have cooked up a sexy, sassy, and smart combination of romance and suspense that is simply irresistible.” —Booklist

“Bless the day that Crusie and Mayer sat down to chat, for this collaboration is inspired!” —Romantic Times BOOKreviews (Top Pick)

“Noted romance/chick-lit author Crusie (Bet Me) and adventure author Mayer (Z: A Dave Reilly Novel) team up [and] the writing is seamless.” —Library Journal

“The two writers/two viewpoints style lends itself to humor, and the authors don't stint on fast-paced action and complication.” —Tampa Tribune

“It's light; it's witty; it's a page-turner. It's romantic, in a he-man/she-modern-woman manner.” —The State (South Carolina)

“Combines wit, romance, and movie-quality action in one fast-paced book.” —News and Sentinel (Parkesburg, WV)

“Plenty of big guns, helicopters…and light repartee…all in good fun. Readers will be happy to get a bit damp.” —Publishers Weekly

“Think Jamie Lee Curtis and Arnold Schwarzenegger in the movie True Lies.” —Georgia Library Quarterly

From the Publisher