There's Nothing Tepid about Hot Water by Erin Brockovich with CJ Lyons
Some partnerships are made in heaven; others…well, the weather’s a lot warmer where they’re created. Thriller readers can rejoice that the writing team of Erin Brockovich and CJ Lyons are definitely not the latter type. In Hot Water, they introduce and reintroduce (central character AJ Palladino and other characters were introduced in Rock Bottom, Brockovich’s previous work) a cast of characters that the reader can nearly hear breathe, they are so well-defined.
Reading Hot Water is a lot like downhill skiing—the story picks up speed as you go along. There are not too many books that inspire me to say, after reading the first paragraph, “I’m going to like this book,” but Hot Water did (just ask my husband, if you don’t believe me). I suspect that AJ Palladino has a lot of Erin Brockovich in her.
AJ Palladino is an environmental activist who partners with a lawyer in the small town of Scotia, WV. They are approached by Owen Grandel, a wealthy man who happens to own a nuclear power plant that produces isotopes for the medical field. Grandel is a bit overbearing, but he’s a man with a problem. The residents around his South Carolina plant are against expansion. Environmentalists are against it. Even a local religious group is picketing. The problem is there have been a few minor accidents at the plant and he wants to hire the two women to help him win over the community. The truth is that AJ Palladino is well known and respected, and he feels that having her on-board will allay any fears people may have.
Palladino reluctantly agrees to the million dollar deal and flies to South Carolina. With AJ out of town, her son’s rich and powerful grandfather makes a move to get custody of her son. There is no limit to his machinations—or lack of scruples. Soon, AJ is up to her ass in alligators (literally and figuratively) at the nuclear power plant where it soon seems clear that a saboteur is trying to block the plant’s expansion.
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