BARING ARMS

A Congresswoman and a mysterious agent team up to solve a murder.

Spirited Texas Rep. Carly Wagner, a politician on her way up, is slated to deliver a speech at the Presidential convention until her teenaged daughter Jordan discovers the body of Judge Goodwin Deeds, their next-door neighbor. What was Jordan doing at his house? wonders Carly. She’d been grounded after being brought home from a police-raided computer gaming party by the mysterious operative Carly calls Jones, a man she met while solving another murder (Missing Member, 2006). Deeds had his share of enemies, but why would any of them wreck his computer room, strangle him and cut an electronic access code chip out of his hand? Because Jones, who’s been watching the judge’s home, is unwilling to share what he knows with Carly, she starts sleuthing on her own, hoping to clear her daughter. That may not be so easy, since Jordan admits that (1) she’s covering for her friend Sherry, daughter of a senator from Kentucky, who runs a wiccan website, and (2) she’s sided with the judge’s children against their ill-matched stepmother. The supersexy Jones keeps an eye on Carly and tries to cut her out of the case, which involves the theft of sensitive information. In the end Carly’s chimp Abe Lincoln must save her from the villains.

Despite Beltway machinations, hi-tech wizardry and barely repressed sexuality, the result is a curiously bland thriller.