Fic­tion

The Red Scarf

Babette Hugh­es
  • From the Publisher
August 6, 2014

The Red Scarf opens with Kate Brady, aka, Mrs. Ben Gold try­ing to find a nor­mal life as the wid­ow of the God­fa­ther of the Jew­ish mafia, Ben Gold. Ben Gold is dead and the file is closed as far as law enforce­ment is con­cerned. The angry remain­ing Sarsi­ni broth­er is the killer, or at least that’s what the FBI believes. Good rid­dance is what they and every­one who knew Ben Gold think, and Kate agrees whole­heart­ed­ly. Ben had treat­ed her bad­ly, was not a good man, and frankly deserved exact­ly what he got. And, so, as The Red Scarf picks up her sto­ry she is attend­ing col­lege, liv­ing on the mil­lions of dol­lars of ill-got­ten gain that Ben had left her, and try­ing to put the life of a moll behind her. But once again, even from beyond the grave, Ben Gold drags her back into the dan­ger­ous world of gang­ster and guns. When hand­some FBI agent Adam Fair­field is intro­duced as a guest lec­tur­er, she feels imme­di­ate­ly drawn to him, and he to her. A tor­rid love affair ensues and soon, she is risk­ing her life by reveal­ing her dark­est secret to him, trust­ing that he won’t put her away for life, or worse. For Kate, this sto­ry is about more than the thrill of bring­ing down anoth­er bad man who is intim­i­dat­ing her com­mu­ni­ty and abus­ing his wife. This is about redemp­tion. It’s about get­ting on with her life and leav­ing behind as best she can the lengthy laun­dry list of mis­takes she had made as a young and impres­sion­able woman. Once again, Babette Hugh­es brings all the mov­ing parts of this sto­ry to what is becom­ing her sig­na­ture, a cli­mac­tic fin­ish that leaves the read­er breath­less and yet still think­ing about all the twists and turns and the char­ac­ters we met in The Red Scarf days lat­er, long after the last page is turned.


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