Jeff Stratton

Where Cold Hearts Lead Jeff Stratton

It was already the worst twenty-four hours of Randy Tallas' life. His family had left him and he was ridiculed at school, where he was a guidance counselor. A few drinks after work and an episode of road rage that possessed him to follow a car into deserted gravel pits, and the next thing Randy knew he had killed a young man in self-defense and was on his way home with Melinda, a beautiful student who he had rescued from being gang-raped. But that was just the beginning. Several town thugs saw what Randy did, and Randy knew what those thugs had been about to do to Melinda. After receiving a lesson in life from Melinda, Randy is able to convince his wife Terri that he is sincere about changing, and she agrees to return home to him. Soon, they realize they must band together, along with Melinda and Terri's father, an ex-Special Forces soldier in Vietnam, to wage a war for their survival against a brilliant but psychotic punk named Torino Boy and Max Kurtis, a ruthless and powerful man in the community who happens to be the father of the young man Randy killed.