The Winner, Baldacci - C, Inc.

             "Mr. Jackson" is a criminal mastermind with a vast set of skills. He has cracked the US's national lottery, and selects down and out people to be winners. He manages and controls the money after the announcement of the winner, pays his people a huge return and gives them unlimited control of the principal after a decade. It's a win-win. LuAnn Tyler of nowheresville Georgia proves a bit more complicated because her wastrel of a boyfriend is in the drug business and is killed the day LuAnn leaves him. The locals want her for murder. After winning, LuAnn and her infant daughter, Lisa, leave the country. A decade later, and against the direct admonition of Jackson, she, Lisa, and Charlie, once Jackson's man and now LuAnn's general factotum, secretly return to America. She meets Matt Riggs, a terribly skilled carpenter/GC working on her house, but actually a former FBI man in the witness protection system.

           Most of my Inc.'s are long, tedious history books, infrequently novels, particularly ones written by a noted page-turner. At the half-way point, I jumped ahead to find an enraged Jackson has kidnapped Lisa, the FBI is on LuAnn's tail, and Charlie has been nearly killed by Jackson. LuAnn and Riggs get the jump on Jackson, and Riggs shoots him. The FBI drops all charges against LuAnn after the IRS cleans her out for non-payment of taxes. Riggs proposes and provides some ideas on how they can all get by. LuAnn smiles and points out that she has $100M in a Swiss bank. Total balderdash!