Behead Me

I was contacted by the author, Russell Atkinson, about the possibility of reviewing his sixth book in the Cliff Knowles series, Behead Me. He described the crime novel briefly, and it sounded interesting to me, so I accepted his request – and now I’m a fan. Now, I’ve just bought the first book in the series, hoping it is as exciting as the sixth, and expect that I will work my way through his books in order.

Cliff is a retired FBI agent, now working as a private detective, who is married to Ellen, a special agent who is about to return to work at the FBI after a maternity leave. In this book, Cliff is hired to investigate why a high tech Fortune 500 company, API (Advanced Photolithics, Inc.) is suddenly losing sales on replacement parts for its chip making machines. Was it just a coincidence that one of API’s employees was murdered – actually beheaded in a gruesome event? Not a coincidence at all, as it turns out. Meanwhile, Ellen is assigned to investigate a felon’s request for a presidential pardon. It’s a decades old case, and as it turns out, Cliff was the arresting officer. However, there are strict rules that they must observe about what information they can share with each other.

That’s the basic setup, and it is made impressive by the character development and the very fast developing plot. The characters were real and the supporting cast was well-described. Atkinson’s descriptions of the Utah desert, where Cliff was chased in an attempt to murder him, were beautiful and prosaic. If you like crime novels, then please remember that this book gets my strong recommendation.