Jul 22, 2009

QUERY: BROKEN VERSION 2

Click here to read the original query.

Thanks! Version 2 - BROKEN


Dear Agent X,

Madeline "Madd" Gunn is a fallen cop with an appetite for Chicago's finest breaded steak sandwiches served up with a hearty helping of vengeance. Five years ago, somebody knifed her kid sister to death in an alley. And she wants blood.

After every lead on her sister's case dries up, Madd quits the force and teams up with a group of well-connected vigilantes who hunt down violent criminals and arrange their deaths. When "The Protectors" hand Madd the name of her sister's killer and an untraceable .45, she fires four bullets into the S.O.B.'s chest and watches him die.

There's only one problem. She killed the wrong man.

Once a phone call confirms her worst fears, Madd knows that someone has set her up. But who? Now her name is on the The Protectors' hit list and finding her kid sister's killer is only the beginning of her problems. She needs to live long enough to uncover the truth, and some very powerful people want her dead.

BROKEN is an 86,000 word thriller about the irreversible consequences of revenge--and indigestion. My short stories have appeared in [redacted] and [redacted]. In an effort to add authenticity to the novel, I decided to move to Chicago ten years ago, marry a native, and eat my way through every hot dog stand south of the Loop. So far so good.

Thank you for your time.

3 comments:

JESSJORDAN said...

Nice job! This reads much smoother now that the first paragraph has been cleaned up, and you packed a lot of tension into just a few short paragraphs.

I'm not a big thriller reader, but if i picked this up on the shelf, I'd definitely flip to the first page or two to see if I liked the writing enough to give it a shot.

Best of luck!

froggfeathers said...

Very nice. I would flip this book open too, and I am not a thriller fan.

My only nit is the first sentence. The pseudo-metaphor doesn't work for me. A breaded steak sandwich served up with revenge? I could buy, a breaded steak sandwich and a taste for revenge, but the first version is trying too hard for my taste.

Love the note at the end about indigestion.

Julie said...

I thought, the voice really was really great and that I got a good feel for the MC.

I would reverse this sentence maybe,

"She needs to live long enough to uncover the truth, and some very powerful people want her dead."

and say instead,

"Some very powerful people want her dead and she needs to live long enough to uncover the truth."

Just a suggestion.

Great Job! and good luck!