Book #18 - The Jackpot

The Jackpot was selling well, and it was interesting after I grabbed the sample, so I picked up a copy and ripped through it while on vacation. It starts out exciting, with a man in the projects winning the $415mm lottery. He cleans buildings, including a lawyer’s office, and when he realizes he wins, he must escape his friends from the ghetto complex who suspect he won something, but aren’t sure what. He does, and is unsure of what to do.

We cut to a Lebanese female lawyer, having worked extremely hard for 8 years for a prestigious Richmond law firm, is not promoted to partner. She’s upset, and eventually realizes that her brother, who blew up a bus a year earlier, was one of the reasons.

She’s upset, working late, when Julius, the winner of the lottery, walks into her office and asks for help. She gets him started, then takes him to a partner as she’s not sure what to do with her career and is sure she’ll be fired or quit soon.

The book takes a twist then. We have a killer, hired by an unknown party, to find the ticket and return it. Meanwhile the partner conspires to get the ticket away from Julius and cash it in himself. The action picks up as the female lawyer, Samantha, gets a call that makes her suspect what will happen. She arrives in time to find Julius killed by the partner’s brother in law, who is killed by the partner. Samantha gets the ticket, intending to find Julius’ son and give it to him.

We have a wild ride, as the killer tracks the ticket and leaves a trail of bodies around the town on a snowy Christmas weekend. Samantha and her friend stay one step ahead of the killer, even finding the son of the winner, only to lose him. The end of the book is quite a twist, one I never expected, and wraps the story of nicely. A fun read for me on a weekend.