September 16, 2026 - fundinmentalfundinmental

MY REVIEW

I was not familiar with any of Kent Heckenlively’s books…until I got my hands on a copy of This Never Happened. This book was a fabulous surprise.

Heidi Scherzinger is a working girl, but she is not your average call girl. She is Chicago’s most infamous call girl and she is in Sonny Battaglia’s, the country’s most powerful Mob boss, sights. He makes her an offer she can’t refuse. Get out of town and relocate to Washington DC. Can you guess where this is going?

This is a Watergate style romp through the bedrooms of Washington DC. Whoever holds the information has the power.

I really enjoyed my time with Heidi. Kudos to Ken for a ‘lively’ adventure. I’ll definitely be on the lookout for more of his work.

AMAZON SYNOPSIS

Heidi Scherzinger is just a typical working girl in Chicago in 1972. Well, maybe not so typical. In fact, she’s running Chicago’s most successful independent call girl outfit when she’s summoned to meet with Sonny Battaglia, the country’s most powerful Mob boss.

The other local call girl agencies are complaining about her success, so Sonny offers her a deal: either she gets whacked, or she relocates to Washington, D.C., where she’ll be working for the “Agency” under the control of the creepy Sidney Gottshalk, the resident blackmail specialist.

The Agency wants blackmail material on all the horny Democrats flooding the Capitol in the run-up to the presidential election, trying to defeat President Nicholas Dixon as he runs for a second term.

The always efficient Heidi quickly sets up a first-class operation, aided by the quietly competent Milton Greenbaum. What follows is a Florence Gump-style adventure through a 1970s Washington, D.C., that might be just a little different than the version you read about in your history books.

Genre: Fiction, Political, Suspense, Thriller
406 pages, Paperback
Published June 23, 2026 by Manhattan Book Group

ABOUT KENT HECKENLIVELY

When I was fourteen years old I submitted my first story to ANALOG magazine, devoted to short science fiction stories. My story did not get accepted, but I did get a gentle rejection letter which told me to keep writing. In college I wrote my first novel, spent many years writing screenplays, and eventually ran across a story I thought I could turn into a non-fiction story. That was PLAGUE, co-authored with Dr. Judy Mikovits.

In between writing, I worked a summer for a United States Senator, spent two summers chasing bad guys at the United States Attorney’s Office, and spent six weeks in a virus lab where I worked with Ebola.

In college I was a double major in English and Political Science, served as Head of our Model United Nations team, and was our school’s Rhodes Scholar Candidate. In law school I was a writer and editor for law review, and also won top honors in our Mock Trial class.

I worked as a lawyer with my dad for several years, then found myself drawn to my original love of science and became a science teacher. Now I get to teach science during the day and write about it at night.