Charlie Rowell

My Cousin, Charlene Charlie Rowell

"Sometimes I wonder whether he kills that way, an amazingly pretty woman materializing beside them, disconcerting them, disarming them and then ..." Danny Compton, average lawyer, has cruised through life avoiding all sorts of serious matters, including just about everything related to law until he opens his apartment door and meets the hottest woman he has ever seen. She is his cousin, Charlene, sleek, sassy and drop dead gorgeous. He didn't know he had a Cousin Charlene until that moment, and he certainly didn't know that Charlene started life as Dwight, his cousin whom the playground bullies targeted when they were children. Five years later, he is Daniel Rodney Compton, the head man of Compton and Associates, the highly successful law firm created for him by Charlene because he was the only one who stood up for Dwight - even if they lost every fistfight. In return, Charlene asks the occasional favor, and this time it's a whopper. He has to save an anonymous child from the clutches of his abusive grandparents, where he is headed because the system isn't working. There's a catch. Compton's professional role model and personal hero is on the case. And that ain't all. Charlene's male ego, Charlie, plays poker with a group that includes Willie Watson, who pays his losses with his wife. After Charlie wins the pot he brings her home to Daniel and then leaves town "on business." Willie's wife, Mitzi, stays with Daniel as his personal slave until the next big game - and Daniel has no idea how to play poker. This first book in a trilogy is followed by Pandora's Box and My Cousin's Closet.