Murder, suspense, sex--and some handy household tips.

Every desperate housewife would love an alias. Donna Stone has one and it's government sanctioned. Oh sure, you've got to be ruthless to take on Russian mafia bosses, rogue dictators, and terrorists set on destroying the world. But it takes real killer instincts to survive suburbia. Try juggling the 5th grade phone tree during a shootout with arms dealers, or driving carpool while being chased by Chinese double agents.

Donna's life wasn't always this complicated. Five years earlier she was just another woman with two preschoolers, a baby bump, and an adoring husband, Carl, with whom she lived happily ever after in a McMansion in the Orange County, California community of Hilldale. But Donna's life was changed forever the night she delivered her baby:

Carl's car blew up on the way to the hospital.

Turns out Carl was an assassin for the black ops organization known as Acme Corporation. The hit on Alex was carried out by the Quorum, a terrorist cell he was tracking. The Quorum's motto: "Show me the money." Governments and corporations do as they're told--or suffer bloody consequences.

Carl left something behind that the Quorum wants badly. To protect herself and avenge Carl's death, Donna joined Acme. Whereas her hostessing skills rival Martha Stewart's, her marksmanship is second to none.

A good thing, too, because the Quorum has planted a sleeper cell in Hilldale. For Donna, that's too close for comfort. Will she be able to save her family before the Quorum blows up Los Angeles?

Acme's way of flushing out the Quorum is by "bringing Carl back from the dead." But terrorism makes strange bedfellows. Jack Craig, the wild card Acme operative paired with Donna brings, new meaning to that old adage "Honey, I'm home..."

EXCERPT

Chapter 1: Please Read and Follow Directions Carefully . . .

Any woman can be both the perfect housewife and an accomplished assassin, because both functions require the same qualities: creativity; a never-say-die attitude; and an attention to details, no matter how small . . .
*
All I really needed to know about being a freelance assassin I learned before my youngest daughter, Trisha, started kindergarten.

I've come to that realization as I lay naked and handcuffed to the bed of my target du jour, a sleazebag by the name of Yuri Petrovich. Yuri has just downed a couple of Viagra with the last of his Starbucks venti-sized non-fat decaf caramel macchiato. This is to ensure us both that his attempt to mount me will have all the gusto of a broncobuster breaking in the wildest filly in the corral before heading on into the sunset. (In truth, we are in a hillside suite at the Chateau Marmont. But considering Yuri's attitude toward women, the cowboyspeak sums things up quite nicely.)

Believe it or not, everything is going just as I planned, and right on schedule.
At least, that is what I tell myself as I watch him unzip his rock star-tight leather pants and squeeze out of them as quickly as he can because his erection, which seems to be growing by the second, has him wincing. In Yuri's fantasy if anyone is going to get hurt, it's going to be me. The handcuffs are proof of that.

Like 88 percent of all my targets, this Russian mafia boss, who came here to unload a cache of AK-103s on some Idaho Neo-Nazis, is obsessive-compulsive. In Yuri's case that means staying in the same suite at the Marmont every time he hits Los Angeles (although his Slavic accent and pockmarked greaser looks has hardly earned him an iota of the ass-kissing accorded aging rock stars, budding celebutantes, or out-of-town British actors); doing the down-and-dirty with some rent-a-whore, both before and after the arms sale; and drinking macchiatos nonstop, even during his favorite sex act, that Kama Sutra position called "the ostrich's tail." Don't ask, because you really don't want to know...(c) 2011 Josie Brown. All rights reserved. Published by Signal Press.

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