Ned Kelly must be a very sexy guy. In the pages of this book he proves to be irresistible to two women who have every reason to have nothing personal to do with him. One of them should see him as a two-bit loser (she's the very classy high-priced whore being kept by a very rich businessman). The other should see him as a high-risk fugitive from justice (she's an FBI agent specializing in art fraud).

The fact is, the guy is easily smitten. First, he falls in love with the 10-plus blue-eyed Tess McAullife, a girl of his dreams and a guest at the Brazilian Court, a very expensive Florida resort where he works as a lowly lifeguard. Sure, they both like the same movies and laugh at the same jokes, but she's the rarest Russian caviar and Dom Perignon; he's burgers and coke. Romances like this don't happen.

Ah, but Ned has a plan. He's about to elevate his station in life by around a $Mil. His cousin Mickey is cutting him on some very rewarding action: a pre-arranged art theft that's going to be a walk in the park. Even better, he's not even going near the place when the gang breaks and enters. His assignment is to set off a few alarms around town to create a diversion for the overstressed police force. Easily done. The alarm bit goes okay, but it's steeply downhill from there.

His first presentiment of a problem comes from a frantic call from Dee, Mickey's girl and part of the break-in gang, at a time he shouldn't be hearing from her, telling him to get back to the house in Lake Worth right away. Flashing cop cars racing past him is the next clue to danger. "Where could they be headed with all the shit going on all over town? he wonders.

He follows, and they lead him to the Brazilian Court, where he finds out Tess is dead. Devastated, he backs away and drives to the house, only to have another black and white streak past him. Could things be getting worse? Sure enough. Mickey's rented house is surrounded by cop cars and EMS wagons. It's the scene of a massacre. But the plan wasn't just found out. Somebody set them up for a very deadly piece of work.

It makes no sense to anyone, including special agent in charge of the FBI's new Art Theft and Fraud department for the south Florida region, Ellie Shurtleff. $60 million in art stolen and four dead bodies are enough to confuse anyone's sense at a crime scene. What she has no premonition of is just how she's going to burst outside of her area of expertise and become more involved with the wanted perp than she ever dreamed possible. Or, that there's any connection between the beautiful dead whore at the resort and the theft of Dennis Stratton's paintings from his butlered mansion.

But, Ned is quickly connected to the crimes and media headlines inform him he's a wanted man. He goes home to mom in an attempt to find Frank, his mob boss father, who Ned strongly suspects had something to do with the rip off or knows what went down. He's not about to turn himself in, even with mom urging him to do so. And, those urgings get an immediate boost when two FBI agents show up at her door. One of them is Ellie, and when she appears in the doorway to interview mom, Ned goes barreling into her and winds up using her as a hostage.

The real windup is that he pours out everything he knows to the agent before releasing her, trying to show he's not the kind of guy who could do murder. He takes off into the wind and she finds herself intrigued, attracted and believing him. Which is not going to go down well with her superiors and fellow officers.

Patterson and Gross tell the story from varying viewpoints: in the first person for Ned, omniscient observer for everyone else. It never gets comfortable, and the storytelling gets somewhat awkward and uncharacteristic of the mystery master. But, it does equate to a nicely conceived thriller with the good guy on the run.