Amanda Granger pleads with her spouse Jason to listen to her as she tries to explain that she is pregnant. Jason shrugs her condition off by saying pregnancy is not on their current agenda and begins to drive to a business meeting in another city. While driving in his fancy Corvette, Jason angers another driver, Sonny Houston, who beats him up in a nearby rest stop, sending him to a hospital. While still recuperating in the hospital, Jason soon learns that his mistress Blair Lawton is pregnant too.

Meanwhile, Amanda does not like the way Jason has recently behaved even before the accident. She hires Willy Hanson, who loves being a private investigator, even if most of his work involves matrimonial cheating. She wants him to catch her spouse (what else would she hire a Willy for) cheating. This seems to be an easy case to accomplish since Jason does have a mistress. However, Willy's simple case becomes complicated when Sonny cannot release his road rage, planning to make Jason his personal tackling dummy.

FAST LANE, the sixth Hanson mysteries, is a 90 MPH plot that stars a likable lead protagonist (and his equally enjoyable partner). The story line moves at the pace of a SST. Though most of the cast offers no redeeming values, leaving little reader empathy for any of them, Hanson remains a character of note whom readers will still adore. Not quite at the level of some of his previous novels, Ralph Arnote still writes an original, non-stop thriller.

Harriet Klausner

Should the author ever desire to revise or write another edition, I hope he doesn't change much, as it is good, but he might consider adding a few key upland plants which grow in extreme proximity to coastal wetland plants; these might be American Beach Grass (Ammophila brevigulata), Beachpeas (Lathyrus maritimus), Seaside Rose (Rosa), Stinging Nettle (Urtica dioica), Bayberry (Myrica pensylvanica), Sea Celery (Ligusticum scoticum), Common Sow Thistle or Beach Lettuce (Sondus oleraceae) - but these are easily learned on their own.

This is an excellent, very well written reference manual, useful to environmental consultants, wetland delineators, and botanists. Get a plastic book cover to protect it, and use it in the field (or salt-marsh, as the case may be). This may be the best text on this particular subject. -DMM

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