The Policy

After his divorce, Hunt Jackson decides to start over in Tucson, where an old buddy fixes him up with his wife's friend, Beth. The attraction is immediate, and they're married a few months later. But Hunt's happiness is marred by his bizarre encounter with an insurance agent whose insistence that Hunt increase his coverage sounds, incredibly, like a threat. The agent — tall, gaunt, oddly dressed in an old-fashioned suit and fedora — is himself a menacing figure. And it soon becomes clear that whoever turns down his "offer" suffers catastrophic consequences: property destruction, fire, tornadoes — in tornado-free Arizona! What is going on? Hunt and Beth are determined to find out — never suspecting that the company's policy for life insurance will turn out to be more terrifying than death...

From Publishers Weekly

Similar in style and structure to Little's previous books (The Association, etc.), this chilling tale revolves around a handful of tightly knit characters living in Tucson, Ariz.-including recently divorced Hunt Jackson, his new wife, his co-workers and his best buddy from high school-who are continually harassed by a pesky insurance salesman. The salesman tries to convince them to purchase bizarre policies protecting them from the law, their bosses and even death, and if the clients refuse, inexplicable consequences usually follow. When Jackson turns down additional insurance, for example, he is incomprehensibly charged with child molestation and thrown in jail. Then he buys so-called conviction insurance while behind bars, and the alleged victim is killed in a car accident. One of Little's primary strengths is his ability to create believable characters whose lives are disrupted by a seemingly mundane yet supernatural force. Those characters then emerge as heroes by single-handedly defeating that force-in this case, an omnipotent insurance company that is bent on destroying the world one policyholder at a time. That said, by this point in the author's career-this is his 14th novel-Little's approach, while still enjoyable, has become predictable. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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