The only thing more dangerous than understanding each other is the trip They’re on

Where to find your copy of Stopleak to buy, plus a look at how the story of Lisa and Sid’s voyage of discovery developed. The book has 284 page, and you can get it in paperback for $15.99 and as an ebook for $3.99.

Synopsis

The worst has happened. There’s been a leak in the courier system that is Operation Quickline, and Lisa Wycherly and Sid Hackbirn are sent to plug it. This is no straight-up investigation. The two are being used as bait for a complex trap. 

Lisa and Sid make their way around the country, starting in Washington, DC. Lisa eats her way through Manhattan, Sid puts up with rides at DisneyWorld, Florida. But the tension really ratchets up in New Orleans, when Lisa is spotted by a pair of thugs determined to kill her. 

The trail of dead bodies grows, but something else is happening. Sid and Lisa learn not just to accept each other, in spite of their very differing values. They try to understand each other, which means learning about their childhoods and how they became the people they are.

Surviving the challenges to their respective values is hard enough. The bigger challenge will be to stay alive long enough to return home to their normal lives.

About Stopleak and how it happened

Honestly? I had no intention of going further with That Old Cloak and Dagger Routine when I started writing it. But, dang, Lisa and Sid grew on me as I wrote the first book and the next thing I knew Stopleak was coming together.

A lot of it happened because I began to explore Sid’s character and how he came to be who he is. His background was pretty foreign to me at the time I originally wrote the series in the 1980s. But it was familiar, too. Hippies and the Vietnam War and all that had surrounded me from my childhood and through my teen years.

However, as I got a grip on Sid, that meant I needed to know more about Lisa, too. Yes, of all my characters, Lisa is probably the closest to me, personally. But she has some significant differences, too. I grew up in suburbia, in Orange County, California, with parents from the Midwest. She’s from South Lake Tahoe, a resort town in the mountains and her parents are from Southern Florida. Her father owns a business and her mother works alongside him. My father worked in the defense industry and my mother taught school. Lisa is also a youngest child and I’m an oldest.

Which is why Stopleak focuses so much on Sid and Lisa’s backgrounds. As Father John, Lisa’s friend and confessor, remarks at the beginning of the book, Lisa and Sid may have accepted each other’s differences. Now, they need to understand them so that they can continue to work with each other effectively. The fun part? Of course, it doesn’t end with working together. And ultimately, they may just find that their values aren’t as different as they thought.