The Brummie Con

Sunken City Capers #4

by Jeffrey A. Ballard

Almost a hundred years ago, a major terrestrial event reshaped the earth’s coastlines. Goodbye entire cities. Goodbye entire states. Goodbye entire countries. And when the authorities outlawed salvaging from these sunken sites, why say hello to a new breed of criminal: underwater reclamation specialists. Even a hundred years later, there’s still a whole lot of loot for the reclaiming.

Bosses are dead. Her father kidnapped. And no one has a clue why.

Isa, Puo, and Winn rush back to her father’s estate for answers, but only finds guns, assassins, and relentless pursuit. Forced into a desperate escape, Isa must retreat further into her past to stay alive.

Dejected and back in the miserable gutters she started from, Isa starts to piece together the disparate events of the past several months. Unfortunately, the trail leads back to England, the site of the most daring underwater heist in history and a buzzing hive of pissed of Brits clamoring for the thieves throats.

Confused and on the run for their lives, Isa must unravel the unthinkable: Cleaners declaring open war. More than just their own lives depend on it.


Sunken City Capers is a fun post-apocalyptic series with no zombies, just criminals and mischievous ne’er-do-wells. Fans of heist novels/movies and strong female protagonists will likely enjoy this series.

Sunken City Capers Books:
- The Solid-State Shuffle, Book 1
- The Elgin Deceptions, Book 2
- Leverage, Book 3
- The Brummie Con, Book 4
- Book 5 to be announced soon!

Genres: Dystopia

300 pages, Paperback

Published October 23, 2017

About the author

Jeffrey A. Ballard writes and lives in the Texas Hill Country just outside of Austin. From a small child he has always been fascinated with the ocean, leading him to earn a B.S. in Ocean Engineering from FAU and a M.S. in Acoustics from Penn State.

His overactive imagination followed him into academia, where he is currently a researcher at the University of Texas. Eventually, he circled back to a boyhood ambition of writing down all his daydreams. He writes daily now and has found a wonderful second life for his college textbooks.

The Solid-State Shuffle: Sunken City Capers Book 1 is set to be released October 2016. You can learn more and sign up for the eARC list on the front page at www.jaballard.com.

Reviews

[Devann · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was struggling with whether I wanted to give this 3 or 4 stars basically the entire time I was reading it, but that ending was so good and now I'm all pumped up for the next one so I decided to go with 4. Basically I really love the world-building in this series and I think it has a really good amount of suspense, but there is a reason that book 2 was previously the only book in this series to get a 4 star rating from me ...and that reason is because Winn was nowhere to be found.

Don't get me wrong, I LIKE Winn, I really do. But when Winn is around Isa becomes nearly unbearable. She was not so bad in this book, mostly because I think she actually realized for once that there were waaay more important things she needed to deal with, but I wish they would either just get back together or he would leave [the first is more likely and honestly that's FINE, but just pick one]. Like there is a part in here where she's trying to decide what to give him for Christmas and she's like 'what gift says I like you but I'm not ready to date again yet but also I don't want you dating anyone else' and I'm like NO GIFT SAYS THAT, ISA, BECAUSE YOU'RE BEING COMPLETELY RIDICULOUS AND UNREASONABLE.

But anyway, it was still a really great book and as always I love the way that Isa and Puo play off each other. My one complaint with the series, as per usual, is the high-school-drama level romance, but I guess you can't have everything. Looking forward to the next book since it will apparently wrap up the ongoing plot for this first part of the series.

[Emily · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Brummie Con starts where Leverage the third book in the Sunken City Capers series left off with Isa’s father being held hostage by a shadowy organization that only the cleaner’s guild elite know anything about. The action is non-stop from the first page to the last as Isa, Winn and Puo try to stay alive and free long enough to find out why his shadow organization is hunting them and how Isa can save her father. With a heart breaking surprise ending that will leave you anxiously awaiting the next action packed installment of this great series.

[Mr. C. C. Sharp · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good

Yep, liked it enough to buy four bookś. Keen to find out what happens next. Will buy the next book.

[David Moore · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love this series!

[Angus Rivers · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good, Better, Best !

The Sunken City Capers books just keep you reading compulsively. I have dashed through the series with much pleasure as the characters have developed to the point where I want to get into Book 5 right away.