Janice Law
Under Orion
Although I never envisioned writing a series of detective stories, Anna Peters, whose first outing was in the Edgar nominee, The Big Payoff, has refused to go away, attracting trouble both in and out of the corporate world.
Brief Synopsis:
Anna Peters, the unorthodox New World Oil Company researcher, gets tapped for a delicate mission to pre-unification Germany: collect an East German oil chemist who's discovered how to separate oil from sea water. If genuine, the new process means huge profits, and Philip McKenzie, New World Oil's chief chemist, assures Anna and her boss that everything is on the level.
Anna thinks this may be too good to be true, and when she and McKenzie arrive in Germany, she finds out that fraud is the least of her worries. The German chemist and his thuggish brother have their own agendas and some very special skills, while the gifted, mercurial Philip Mckenzie has a bad habit of putting himself - and Anna _ in danger.
Under Orion has been issued in British editions and was a selection of the Detective Book Club.
Contenporary quotes and reviews:
Dorothy Salisbury Davis: "With UNDER ORION Janice Law moves to the top among todayıs suspense writers. She excels in tension and terror and one feels that her story is all too true."
"Plenty of action told in a competent way" NY Times Book Review of UNDER ORION. 1978
"The dialogue is crisp, the characters are menacing and Anna, who is always quick-witted and resourceful, is inevitably a survivor in each new climate of terror and violence. Vive la Femme!" Hartford Courant Review, 12/10/78
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