As Elaine Brogan grew out of her childhood, she soon realized her father was an ordinary laborer and a drunkard, and some magic leaves her life. As a young teenager, she approaches a modeling agency, where ‘graduation’ required a private session with the owner, Ronald Eskew. She demands her fee back, which turns out to be counterfeit money, resulting in her father being jailed and committing suicide. Determined to find justice, she finishes college and gets accepted into the Secret Service, where she pursues a career hunting down counterfeiters—and Eskew. She eventually tracks him down, only to discover he is dead. On an assignment in Bulgaria, she falls in love with her boss, and is shattered when it turns out he might be crooked.

I had a lot of problems with Lust, Money & Murder. The plot is sketchy and far too stereotyped, and the story reads like a detailed book outline. There is very little characterization for the reader to connect with, although there are tantalizing passages that could have been explored more fully. The first section where a man in his 50s lures a young streetwalker to launder money for him, then kills her, was a great opening, but Mike Wells left it at that, leaving me wondering what that was all about. That is the problem with the whole work — underdeveloped and disappointing. Elaine Brogan’s life held so much promise, but the reader is given only glimpses. Mike Wells would have done much better to present a full-length novel, rather than releasing a 65-page summary.