This deliciously entertaining thriller has all the right ingredients: suspense, a strange but brilliant villain and a woman lifted out of poverty into privilege--but with a price. LuAnn Tyler is smart, beautiful, but desperately poor, working as a waitress and living with an abusive boyfriend and her greatly loved infant daughter. When a stranger offers her the chance to win millions of dollars in the national lottery, LuAnn's new life, which will ultimately lead her into danger as great as her wealth, begins. Frances Cassidy's narration is rich, sultry and powerful. Through degree of accent and inflection, she conveys the very different person LuAnn becomes, thanks to education and travel. Cassidy also perfectly captures both the streetwise Charlie (LuAnn's friend and companion) and the menacing Mr. Jackson. The suspenseful conclusion keeps the listener breathless, thanks to Baldacci's plotting and Cassidy's pacing and flawless emotional pitch. M.A.M. Winner of AUDIOFILE Earphones Award ©AudioFile, Portland, Maine
The Winner
Narrated by Francis Cassidy
David BaldacciUnabridged — 16 hours, 18 minutes
The Winner
Narrated by Francis Cassidy
David BaldacciUnabridged — 16 hours, 18 minutes
Overview
The Dream
She is 20, beautiful, dirt-poor, and hoping for a better life for her infant daughter when LuAnn Tyler is offered the gift of a lifetime, a $100 million lottery jackpot. All she has to do is change her identity and leave the U.S. forever.
The Killer
It's an offer she dares to refuse...until violence forces her hand and thrusts her into a harrowing game of high-stakes, big-money subterfuge. It's a price she won't fully pay...until she does the unthinkable and breaks the promise that made her rich.
The Winner
For if LuAnn Tyler comes home, she will be pitted against the deadliest contestant of all: the chameleon-like financial mastermind who changed her life. And who can take it away at will...
A Hachette Audio production.
Editorial Reviews
The popular Baldacci hits pay dirt big time with his entertaining thriller The Winner. When the enigmatic Mr. Jackson approaches LuAnn Tyler, a young, indigent mother of one, and guarantees her the $100 million national lottery prize, all of her prayers, or possibly all of her fears, become reality.
Baldacci cuts everyone's grass . . . and more than gets away with it.
Absolute Power. Total Control. And now The Winner: Baldacci doesn't settle for second best. Here, his heroine, who gets rich after being forced to participate in a fixed lottery, is wanted for murder.
For David Baldacci, writing has proved far more profitable than practicing law. His first novel, Absolute Power was made into a movie starring Clint Eastwood, and Tri-Star will release his second, Total Control," as a CBS mini-series next year. This is the former Washington D.C., attorney's third novel in as many years, and it's hard not to imagine its achieving the extended shelf-life status of its predecessors, since it has all the trappings of the contemporary action/adventure tale: a fast-paced story that incorporates excitement, suspense and an understanding of technology (Indeed, it is particularly the latter element - technology - that has enabled some of today's most popular fiction writers to turn fantastical plots into believable stories.) The heroine of The Winner is LuAnn Tyler, a smart and beautiful young woman from a backwater Georgia town who lives in a trailer with her baby's father, a no-good bum who drinks away his paycheck, fools around with other women and now seems to have picked up a sideline career in drug dealing. LuAnn dreams of leaving Duane whole she's slinging hash at her all-night, truck stop job, but knows realistically she's unlikely to save enough money to make the break. Enter Jackson, a master of multiple disguises with better-than-average talents for acting, investing and fixing lotteries. He's already successfully fixed a bunch of them, making the recipients enormously wealthy, and now he's settled on LuAnn as the winner of his next lottery scam. Though puzzled by Jackson's offer, LuAnn is also enticed - here's her chance to split from Duane and give her child a more promising future. But she's uncomfortable with the scheme, and ultimately decides to decline. That all changes the morning she's to give Jackson her answer, when she accidentally becomes embroiled in one of Duane's drug deals gone awry. With Jackson's invitation her only shot at avoiding a potential murder conviction, she accepts and she and infant Lisa head for New York City, where the drawing is to take place. Under ordinary circumstances, LuAnn would have accepted the money and gotten her new life under way. But her appearance on TV attracts the interest of the authorities, so Jackson has to spirit her out of the country. She is ordered to make her home in Europe, which she does for 10 years. But she gets weary of being on the run, and wants a more stable life for Lisa, so she sneaks back into the U.S. moving to a home she has bought in Virginia. A substantial portion of the book is devoted to her efforts to evade both the police and Jackson, which is to say the excitement doesn't wane - in fact, it picks up - in the latter half of the book. If you were a bit disappointed with Baldacci's second novel, Total Control, you were justified; it didn't live up to the drama and credibility of Absolute Power. Be assured, however, that The Winner is - well, a winner.
Irritatingly trite woman-in-periler from lawyer-turned-novelist Baldacci. Moving away from the White House and the white-shoe Washington law firms of his previous bestsellers (Absolute Power, 1996; Total Control, 1997), Baldacci comes up with LuAnn Tyler, a spunky, impossibly beautiful, white-trash truck stop waitress with a no-good husband and a terminally cute infant daughter in tow. Some months after the birth of Lisa, LuAnn gets a phone call summoning her to a make-shift office in an unrented storefront of the local shopping mall. There, she gets a Faustian offer from a Mr. Jackson, a monomaniacal, cross-dressing manipulator who apparently knows the winning numbers in the national lottery before the numbers are drawn. It seems that LuAnn fits the media profile of what a lottery winner should be—poor, undereducated but proud—and if she's willing to buy the right ticket at the right time and transfer most of her winnings to Jackson, she'll be able to retire in luxury. Jackson fails to inform her, however, that if she refuses his offer, he'll have her killed. Before that can happen, as luck would have it, LuAnn barely escapes death when one of husband Duane's drug deals goes bad. She hops on a first-class Amtrak sleeper to Manhattan with a hired executioner in pursuit. But executioner Charlie, one of Jackson's paid handlers, can't help but hear wedding bells when he sees LuAnn cooing with her daughter. Alas, a winning $100 million lottery drawing complicates things. Jackson spirits LuAnn and Lisa away to Sweden, with Charlie in pursuit. Never fear. Not only will LuAnn escape a series of increasingly violent predicaments, but she'll also outwit Jackson, pay anenormous tax bill to the IRS, and have enough left over to honeymoon in Switzerland. Too preposterous to work as feminine wish-fulfillment, too formulaic to be suspenseful.
"Flat out fun to read...a wildfire of a thriller."—Publisher's Weekly
"Baldacci has come up with another good one."—New York Times
"Aptly named...the devilish tale of a heroine who gambles her soul."—People
"He's hit the jackpot again...Baldacci pushes the pace pedal to the floor and takes the turns on two wheels."—New York Daily News
"His eye for a cinematic book doesn't waver...Enjoy the ride."—Cleveland Plain Dealer
"The action in this book is relentless...Baldacci has created one of the more amazing characters you're likely to run across—LuAnn Tyler."—Houston Chronicle
"It's hard to put the book down."—Chicago Tribune
This deliciously entertaining thriller has all the right ingredients: suspense, a strange but brilliant villain and a woman lifted out of poverty into privilege--but with a price. LuAnn Tyler is smart, beautiful, but desperately poor, working as a waitress and living with an abusive boyfriend and her greatly loved infant daughter. When a stranger offers her the chance to win millions of dollars in the national lottery, LuAnn's new life, which will ultimately lead her into danger as great as her wealth, begins. Frances Cassidy's narration is rich, sultry and powerful. Through degree of accent and inflection, she conveys the very different person LuAnn becomes, thanks to education and travel. Cassidy also perfectly captures both the streetwise Charlie (LuAnn's friend and companion) and the menacing Mr. Jackson. The suspenseful conclusion keeps the listener breathless, thanks to Baldacci's plotting and Cassidy's pacing and flawless emotional pitch. M.A.M. Winner of AUDIOFILE Earphones Award ©AudioFile, Portland, Maine
Product Details
| BN ID: | 2940170090273 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Hachette Audio |
| Publication date: | 06/05/2012 |
| Edition description: | Unabridged |
| Sales rank: | 821,523 |
Read an Excerpt
Chapter One
Jackson studied the shopping mall's long corridor, noting haggard mothers piloting loaded strollers and the senior citizens group walking the mall both for exercise and conversation. Dressed in a gray pinstriped suit, the stocky Jackson stared intently at the north entrance to the shopping mall. That would no doubt be the one she would use since the bus stop was right in front. She had, Jackson knew, no other form of transportation. Her live-in boyfriend's truck was in the impoundment lot, the fourth time in as many months. It must be getting a little tedious for her, he thought. The bus stop was on the main road. She would have to walk about a mile to get there, but she often did that. What other choice did she have? The baby would be with her. She would never leave it with the boyfriend, Jackson was certain of that.
While his name always remained Jackson for all of his business endeavors, next month his appearance would change dramatically from the hefty middle-aged man he was currently. Facial features of course would again be altered; weight would probably be lost; height added or taken away, along with hair. Male or female? Aged or youthful? Often, the persona would be taken from people whom he knew, either wholly or bits of thread from different ones, sewn together until the delicate quilt of fabrication was complete. In school, biology had been a favorite subject. Specimens belonging to that rarest of all classes, the hermaphrodite, had never ceased to fascinate him. He smiled as he dwelled for a moment on this greatest of all physical duplicities.
Jackson had received afirst-rate education from a prestigious Eastern school. Combining his love of acting with his natural acumen for science and chemistry, he had achieved a rare double major in drama and chemical engineering. Mornings would find him hunched over pages of complex equations or malodorous concoctions in the university's chemistry lab, while the evenings would have him energetically embroiled in the production of a Tennessee Williams or Arthur Miller classic.
Those accomplishments were serving him very well. Indeed, if his classmates could only see him now.
In keeping with today's character--a middle-aged male, overweight and out of shape from leading a sedentary lifestyle--a bead of perspiration suddenly sprouted on Jackson's forehead. His lips curled into a smile. This physical reaction pleased him immensely, aided as it was by the insulation of the padding he was wearing to provide bulky proportions and to conceal his own wiry frame. But it was something more than that too: He took pride in the fact that he became the person totally, as though different chemical reactions took place within him depending on who and what he was pretending to be.
He didn't normally inhabit shopping malls; his personal tastes were far more sophisticated. However, his clientele were most comfortable in these types of surroundings, and comfort was an important consideration in his line of work. His meetings tended to make people quite excited, sometimes in negative ways. Several interviews had become extremely animated, compelling him to think on his feet. These reminiscences brought another smile to Jackson's lips. You couldn't argue with success, though. He was batting a thousand. However, it only took one to spoil his perfect record. His smile quickly faded. Killing someone was never a pleasant experience. Rarely was it justified, but when it was, one simply had to do it and move on. For several reasons he hoped the meeting today would not precipitate such an outcome.
He carefully dabbed his forehead with his pocket handkerchief and adjusted his shirt cuffs. He smoothed down a barely visible tangle in the synthetic fibers of his neatly groomed wig. His real hair was compressed under a latex skullcap.
He pulled open the door to the space he had rented in the mall and went inside. The area was clean and orderly--in fact too much so, he thought suddenly as he slowly surveyed the interior. It lacked the look of a true working space.
The receptionist seated behind the cheap metal desk in the foyer looked up at him. In accordance with his earlier instructions, she didn't attempt to speak. She had no idea who he was or why she was here. As soon as Jackson's appointment showed up, the receptionist had been instructed to leave. Very soon she would be on a bus out of town, her purse a little fatter for her minimal troubles. Jackson never looked at her; she was a simple prop in his latest stage production.
The phone beside her sat silent, the typewriter next to that, unused. Yes, absolutely, too well organized, Jackson decided with a frown. He eyed the stack of paper on the receptionist's desk. With a sudden motion he spread some of the papers around the desk's surface. He then cocked the phone around just so and put a piece of paper in the typewriter, winding it through with several quick spins of the platen knob.
Jackson looked around at his handiwork and sighed. You couldn't think of everything all at once.
Jackson walked past the small reception area, quickly hitting the end of the shallow space, and then turned right. He opened the door to the tiny interior office, slipped across the room, and sat down behind the scuffed wooden desk. A small TV sat in one corner of the room, its blank screen staring back at him. He pulled a cigarette from his pocket, lit it, and leaned far back in the chair, trying his best to relax despite the constant flow of adrenaline. He stroked his thin, dark mustache. It too was made of synthetic fiber ventilated on a lace foundation and attached to his skin with spirit gum. His nose had been changed considerably as well: a putty base highlighted and shadowed, to make his nose's actual delicate and straight appearance bulky and slightly crooked. The small mole resting next to the altered bridge of his nose was also fake: a concoction of gelatin and alfalfa seeds mixed in hot water. His straight teeth were covered with acrylic caps to give them an uneven and unhealthy appearance. All of these illusions would be remembered by even the most casual observer. Thus when they were removed, he, in essence, disappeared. What more could someone wholeheartedly engaged an illegal activities want?
Soon, if things went according to plan, it would all begin again. Each time was a little different, but that was the exciting part: the not knowing. He checked his watch again. Yes, very soon. He expected to have an extremely productive meeting with her; more to the point, a mutually beneficial meeting.
He only had one question to ask LuAnn Tyler, one simple question that carried the potential for very complex repercussions. Based upon his experience, he was reasonably certain of her answer, but one just never knew. He dearly hoped, for her sake, that she would give the right one. For there was only one "right" answer. If she said no? Well, the baby would never have the opportunity to know its mother, because the baby would be an orphan. He smacked the desktop with the palm of his hand. She would say yes. All the others had. Jackson shook his head vigorously as he thought it through. He would make her see, convince her of the inescapable logic of joining with him. How it would change everything for her. More than she could ever imagine. More than she could ever hope for. How could she say no? It was an offer that simply no one could refuse.
If she came. Jackson rubbed his cheek with the back of his hand, took a long, slow drag on the cigarette, and stared absently at a nail pop in the wall. But, truth be known, how could she not come?
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