The Winner

Imagine being a destitute unwed mother from rural Georgia with no money and a live-in boyfriend who is a drunk and regularly brings home another woman to have sex in your trailer?  How about you get a phone call that offers you a guaranteed winning lottery ticket?  That’s the way it goes for LuAnn Tyler in David Baldacci’s novel The Winner.  LuAnn isn’t sure how she will respond, but walking in on her boyfriend being killed by a drug runner (and having to defend herself in the process) gives LuAnn all of the inspiration she needs to make the call. Her life then changes!  Being sought for the murder of her boyfriend has LuAnn on the run, but not until she wins the lottery, picks up the winning ticket in NYC, and thanks to the “chameleon” (man of many disguises), Mr. Jackson, she escapes out of the US with earnings that would keep her free and clear.  She is fortunate that “Charlie” (the guy who was hired to kill her should she not have taken the lottery offer) actually befriends her and travels around the world with Luann and her daughter.  Fast forward ten years (Chapter 2) and then we find that LuAnn decides she wants to come back to the US and then the fireworks really begin!  As a millionaire, and then some, she, Charlie, and her daughter decide to settle in Virginia, home of her deceased mother.  But troubles then persist when a newspaper reporter determines the lottery may have been fixed based on the trend that at least every other lottery winner goes bankrupt, and the only one he can seem to find to be somewhat mysterious is LuAnn who left the country after the murder.  A really great thriller between the murder of LuAnn’s boyfriend, LuAnn’s return to the US, the lottery mystery, and the chameleon Mr. Jackson, who seems to have rigged ten lotteries in a row!  Life in Virginia gets interesting once LuAnn meets Matthew Riggs, a builder who is hired to do work at the new mansion that LuAnn has purchased.  This is a book that no doubt will become a movie as it is a great story, albeit the lottery piece seems a bit far-fetched but is pretty compelling mystery.  I really loved this one!  My first read of his.  Best-selling author.  Love it!  Pick it up!