The Hell Of It All by Bob Kroll

It hasn’t been all that long sing TJ Peterson was drummed out of the Vancouver PD. Anger issues. Could’ve been because his wife was running around on him. But she and her paramour were crushed when a garbage truck flipped over on them. Or it could be his guilt from being with HIS paramour (a hooker) when that accident occurred.

To fill time, his former partner gets him some minor surveillance jobs. On one occasion, a snitch, who goes by the nickname Turtle, mentions that he overheard these 2 guys trying to top each other talking about a body buried going on 20y ago in a city campground. A cold case that doesn’t get any colder. Where is the body, who is buried, and why were they offed and unceremoniously dumped in a hole?

And remember Peterson’s hooker? Her daughter has disappeared and was last seen with one of the more violent dealers in the Canadian west. So Peterson is juggling two cases: the coldest of the cold cases and a hot current case. And both revolve around buying, selling, using, dealing, and dying from heroin.

The two separate, but strangely intertwined cases take Peterson’s days while trying to stay sober dominates his nights. All the while considering eating a bullet.

Perhaps one of the darkest noir book I have read recently, or ever. Kroll’s 2^nd JT Peterson book was deeply disturbing. Probably because a close friend of my kids from high school succumbed to heroin and was missing for over a year until his remains were found in a nearby forest. In the last half of the book, I could see his face in my mind’s eye. Hopefully no one else will have the same reaction I did.

But it was a good book. Just dark. Really, really dark.

East Coast Don

Seconds to Midnight by Philip Donlay

The Eco-Watch research Citation jet is on assignment to study a solar storm’s effects on the northern lights in arctic Canada. The routine data gathering flight is interrupted when a 737 dives through the clouds nearly causing a midair collision. The Eco-Watch pilot manages to evade the 737. Co-pilot and Eco-Watch director, Donovan Nash, is horrified to see the jet’s rear door open and something is shoved out into the deathly cold of the Canadian winter.

The 737 spirals down in a descent that is one part crash and one part landing approach. The Jet manages to land on a frozen lake, but the ice cracks under the jet’s weight, but not before a passenger crawls out a window, scrambles up the wing, then jumps in the water and struggles to get back on the firm ice and crawl to the shore.

Nash orders his pilot to find a way to land the Citation on a distant part of the lake. Nash and a couple of his team trudge through the snow and find a near frozen woman and bring her back on board the plane. Her only words before passing out are a warning that they all are going to be killed. When she wakens, what remains of her memory comes in rare flashes, little of which are of help in determining her identity or how she came to be on the doomed flight.

Too much is unknown, so Nash makes the decision to keep as much about what has happened from both the Canadian and US authorities. The girl’s warning spooks Nash and puts his wife and daughter, currently on vacation in Austria, on alert. His wife Lauren is a GIS specialist with the US and has a rep as being highly resourceful when cornered.

Nash calls on an Eco-Watch employee with diving expertise to haul a ton of equipment up to join him in Minneapolis so they can get into the 737 now resting at the bottom of the frozen lake. Meanwhile, Lauren and daughter are targeted by unknowns and on the run to Scotland, then Poland, and finally the Russian embassy.

This book is #9 in the Donovan Nash series. A ridiculously fast paced book. I doubt anyone who picks this up will take more than a day or two to finish. Do I now have to go back through books #1-8? Only time will tell.

East Coast Don

The War Planners by Andrew Watts

I think we are all aware that somewhere in the bowels of the Pentagon is an office whose sole responsibility is to plan out war scenarios that the US may encounter. Who will attack, how will they attack, how will the US respond, how many might be killed. What’s the potential outcome.

The CIA thinks it has uncovered a Chinese plot to attack the US. A gradual shift of leadership from more civilian leaders is giving way to former military as heads of nearly all departments. Some movements by a few of these new guard have instituted actions that have raised the eyebrows of CIA analysts. All signs point to something happening in the next 12-18 months. The decision is made to go outside the box and recruit a whole new cadre of experts from a multitude of fields, isolate them on a south Pacific island and let them try to figure out the most likely scenarios that the Chinese might put in play.

This group works out a complicated strategy that involves massive Chinese hacking, Wall Street manipulation, and distracting Washington and the American public with what looks like hostile action by Iran against American children.

The group leader of this CIA menagerie is lead by Lena Chou. A ruthless operative of Chinese descent. She has successfully cajoled or kidnapped the experts to work together to dream up the plan for attack and then how to defend such an attack. Most go along willingly. Others less so.

From what I’ve seen, this is part 1 of 2 currently out now, but I’ve seen that this series might end up being five in total. Found out about this from Facebook ads and got the eBook for free. The author is an Annapolis grad and former Naval officer and helicopter pilot. The book has the feel of being written by someone with considerable experience in the topic. If I had a question, it would be why did all these people blindly accept going on this planning mission? Seems like the Pentagon would already have them all contracted as consultants for just this purpose and many would already know each other. I had one other question, but it would reveal too much, so I’ll have to keep it to myself.

If I were the type to assign a star rating, I’d give it a 3.5 stars. Good, but not great. Good enough to venture into book #2, The War Stage.

East Coast Don