The Budapest Escape

Bill Rapp is a long-time CIA employee, and he writes well about this classic cold war era story. This is his sixth novel. The 1956 Hungarian Uprising lasted about 2 weeks before the Soviets slammed the door on it, killing more than 100,000 people in the process. Karl Baier was the CIA agent who was primarily responsible for running a deep mole, Josef Kovacs, known by his handle, Bluebird. Baier had recently barely escaped from Hungary to Austria, but sensing that Bluebird was not safe, and at great risk to his own life, he snuck back into Hungary to try to bring him to the West, despite the fact that the CIA bosses in Washington had specifically prohibited him from doing so. The action in this story mostly took place in Budapest and Vienna, and Rapp provided wonderful descriptions of both cities. Contributing to the action was Baier’s wife, Sabine, another CIA asset. Both Karl and Sabine  were compelling characters. Necessarily, Rapp moved his story along with dialogue among the principals from the US, Austria, Hungary, and Russia. It this era has interest to you, then this book will be a very good read. I was totally entertained by his story.

Blood Feud by Mike Lupica

Mike Lupica is tapped by the Robert B. Parker estate to extend the story of Parker’s Sunny Randall character.  Sunny has a complicated relationship with her ex-husband Richie Burke whose father is local mobster Dominick Burke.  While Sunny is not interested in marriage she finds herself renewing her relationship with her ex after his recent second divorce.  Richie tries to carefully steer clear of his family’s business but occasionally gets pulled in.  One night he is shot but apparently intentionally not killed, an obvious mob maneuver.  Sunny, a licensed private investigator charges to the rescue even though Richie’s family warns her to stay away.  She confronts all the competing crime families to stir the pot and more members of Richie’s family are victimized… an uncle is murdered.  But Sunny’s pride and tenacity can’t let it go.  Someone has to pay for dismantling her ex’s family.

Mike Lupica is a renowned sports writer and gifted author of sports books for young adults.  But he must be bored.  Recently, I’ve seen him weighing in on political talk shows and now he is writing mystery novels for mature adults.  He does a competent job of following Robert B. Parker’s style.  The plot is simple and linear, the lead character is tough, tenacious, and lives by a code, and the dialogue is unsophisticated, coarse, and straight forward.  So, he does well to revere Robert B. Parker.  But why does Robert B. Parker need this type of reverence?  I guess I prefer to remember him for his own original works and not confuse him with these more modern attempts to imitate him.  It’s like seeing the movie version of one of your favorite author’s books and being disappointed by the actor playing the lead character.  The author’s future books are never quite the same.

Thanks to NetGalley for the advanced look.

Long Range by CJ Box

Joe Pickett  is called to the Jackson Hole district to help a fellow Game and Fish warden track down a grizzly that may be mauled an experienced backwoods guide. Only way in is a long ride on horseback. The head dog of Wyoming’s Game and Fish department calls the team on the satphone. The county judge from Pickett’s home district is on a tear. Calls the Governor who calls the Game and Fish boss who runs down Pickett. The judge is demanding every person with arrest authority in his county to his house . . . now. No exceptions.

Judge Hewitt lives year round in a gated vacation community that overlooks both a golf course and the surrounding wilderness. Last night, someone took a shot at him. Hewitt bent over to pick up random drop of a napkin and the bullet sailed over his head and struck his wife in the chest. Hewitt wants every level of law enforcement laser-focused on finding the shooter. Joe tells his boss that it’ll take hours to ride back to his truck and then more hours to drive back to Saddlestring. No, it won’t, his boss says. Right about then, Joe hears a helicopter zero in on their location.

If you remember from the previous book (Wolf Pack), a group of cartel assassins were killed in a shootout on the steps of the county courthouse. Among others, the county sheriff was killed and the prosecutor was crippled. An outsider was elected sheriff and the county public defender crossed the aisle to become prosecutor. The new sheriff is an arrogant SOB with plans to completely resurrect what he sees as a failed department. He ain’t liked. And he certainly sees no need for a hunting summons-writing warden.

 

The sheriff has his ideas on how to investigate the shooting. His detective book doesn’t fit in well with the locals, Joe included. While the sheriff has deputies combing the golf course for clues, Joe asks his friend (and ex-spec ops soldier) Nick Romanowski for his opinion on whether a trained sniper could’ve taken the shot.

But Nick has his own issues. He’s become a family man. Married. Newborn daughter. Yarack, Inc (his falcon-based bird abatement company) is flush with business. Not bad for a guy with a history of sitting in trees, naked, to observe nature. He’s is told that the cartel behind that courthouse massacre is gunning for him and to watch his back. And that the cartel isn’t above punishing his family.

So, the soap opera that is Joe Pickett’s life now has three seemingly disparate issues: the grizzly attack, the attempted murder by a sniper, and a cartel’s goal of retribution against Nick.

All in a day’s work for a lowly game and fish warden who isn’t a great shot with a firearm, has a history of state property damage (trucks and homes mainly), but still has the ear of a former governor. Not to mention is a close friend with a one-man wrecking crew.

Let’s see. The first Joe Pickett novel was 2001. Each year we get a new glimpse into Pickett’s life. It’s 2020 so that means this is the 20^th Joe Pickett novel. And I bet sales have increased every year.

Bottom line is simple: if book sales continue to rise, your main character is still fresh, and the stories are compelling, you end up with 20 straight hits and an expanding loyal fan base. And with no indication of slowing down.Yeah. Box is that good. One of the sure fire, can't miss authors out there.

Now that COVID-19 has forced everyone into self-isolation, you’ll be needing some books to binge on. Don't let Netflix nail you to your couch. Here's enough to keep you entertained that are high on the MRB charts: Joe Pickett (20 by Box), Jack Reacher (24 by Lee Child), Walt Longmire (19 by Craig Johnson), Gabriel Allon (20 by Daniel Silva), Lucas Davenport (30 by John Sanford), Harry Bosch (23 by Michael Connelly), Elvis Cole/Joe Pike (19 by Robert Crais), Chief Inspector Armand Gamache (16 by Louise Penny). Outstanding company. Absolutely cannot go wrong. And there’s plenty more out there. Dive in.

But it you’ve never read any Joe Picket books by CJ Box, you just aren’t paying attention. These books are the real deal, boy and girls . . . the real deal.

ECD

To Speak for the Dead

To Speak for the Dead by Paul Levine is my first Paul Levine book, and this is the first in his Jake Lassiter series. There have been at least 14 Lassiter novels. I’m already hooked and I’ve downloaded the second, Night Vision. Lassiter is an attorney following the end of his career as a football player with the Miami Dolphins. He is nonconventional and irreverent – I loved him from the beginning. And Levine has surrounded Lassiter with a cast of the most interesting characters, not just the doctor he’s defending, a surgeon, Roger Stanton, but also his friend Phil Corrigan, a developer. It’s Corrigan’s death that led to Stanton being charged with malpractice. And, he’s suspected by some of murder. Judge Leonard is more interested in plotting his bets on the horses at Hialeah than in making correct rulings from the bench. Charlie Riggs is the pathologist and expert witness who is able to see through all of the evidence. There, there’s Lassiter’s secretary, Cindy, and his grandmother Granny Lassiter – wonderful characters, so you can look forward to Levine’s descriptions of them. Of course, there are sexual encounters among the principals, so you’ll get to read about that. I think Levine has threaded the needle regarding humor and advancing a mostly believable story. Now, I have a bunch of good new books to work my way through, and that’s the best news.

Wet Work by Mark A. Hewitt

Since the days of Stalin, politically based murder has been the Cold War’s dirty little secret. Neither side wants to investigate. Let the Russians kill their defectors, even if it occurs on US soil. Who cares.

A democratic staffer who assembles negative information on Republican opponents develops a conscious, steals information that is both vital and detrimental to Dem election tactics and decides to go public . . . then he gets murdered. DC police could care less.

Duncan Hunter is ex-CIA now DEA. His weapon of choice is a slow low flying nearly silent airplane. Been around since Vietnam, but Hunter has perfected its abilities that he has made into a stealth aircraft. And added some weapons that make him and his plane a serious threat to people who’d do harm to the US. Threats that come from religious fanatics and cartel heads alike. The plane can fire an air-based sniper rifle accurate out to more than a few miles. And a laser than can blind enemies by frying their eyeballs. He has three of these planes (where'd he get all his money?), the necessary ground crew (Bill Jones and Bill Smith), and (from an earlier book) has a daughter who graduated from the Air Force Academy who now uses that stealth plane to fry Mexican poppy fields. Yeah, an alpha family by DNA.

Hunter’s former boss at the CIA is on the way out. Election is coming up and the opposition candidate has a huge lead. He’s thinking somethings afoot somewhere in the Agency. Politics are getting in the way of protecting the country. He asks Hunter to find out what’s going on and who needs to be held accountable (and with a title like Wet Work, you know what ‘accountable’ means). The sitting President is at risk, too. But politics are at play even in the Secret Service.

This book's jacket blurb is interesting. It’ll draw in readers of political thrillers. Like me. The depth of detail around the book’s election season rivals what we are experiencing right now. Book characters are thinly veiled versions of current politicians. That may be a little too close for some. As such, it’ll have a political slant and this one slants to the right. Way to the right.

Politics aside, when you pick up a book at Barnes and Noble, the heft tells you something. Not so with a Kindle. You read and read and read and read and read and the counter at the bottom right corner of the screen barely moves. Unless you know how to convert Kindle location to pages, you don’t know. And this is a beast. Over 600 print pages. Long long long conversations over coffee and fajitas in an out of the way Mexican joint in Texas. Or again in DC. And again, in NYC. Incredibly detailed after action debriefs, yadda, yadda, yadda. 

Now I’m of the opinion that if I pick up a book, I owe it to the author to finish it out of respect for the work required. And I did. But, man, this was a chore. Not because it was poorly written or researched. All that is first rate. Without question. First rate. It’s just so dang loooooooooong. I’m betting that at least 20-25% could’ve been cut without any loss to the storyline. This is Hewitt's fifth Duncan Hunter book. Wonder it they are all this big.

Be forewarned. This is good, but it is a commitment.

Hard Cash Valley by Brian Panowich

 

Dane Kirby, former fire chief up in McFalls County, GA. Bull Mountain territory. Kirby is no longer looking at arson cases having joined the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. The sheriff calls on Kirby to look in on a local murder because the suspect says he is a friend of Dane. At least until the FBI tells his boss to send Kirby to Jacksonville, FL to look into a case with a fire link.

One of those ubiquitous airport hotels had a fire in a room. A hot flash fire that burned itself out fast. It was an attempt to cover up a murder so grisly that even a hardened investigator like Kirby gags. The victim was first tortured then disemboweled while still alive. The who and the why can’t be answered. An unremarkable clue suggests the victim has a brother.

Kirby is paired with Special Agent Roselita Velasquez. They learn about the victim – Arnold Blackwell. Two-bit crook with a long string of drug and robbery arrests. They learn that Arnold had a brother. Younger. Pre-teen. With Asperger’s Syndrome. Likes birds. A lot. And he has Rain Man-like affinity for numbers and odds.

The killers are Filipino mafia who have major money in cock fighting. Turns out a major ‘tournament’ that floats from city to city had just concluded in the Bull Mountain area. Arnold’s little brother’s specific skill is an unrivaled ability to pick winners in a cock fight. The two of them took this ‘tournament’ for over a million dollars. The Filipino’s had a big stake in the competition, and they want their money back.

Kirby and Roselita (not ‘Rose’) track backwards in time and upwards in altitude to Bull Mountain. To find the boy. To find the money. To the site of the cock fighting fest. And back around to that local murder.

This is Panowich’s 3^rd venture into the Bull Mountain corner of NW Georgia. His first, Bull Mountain knocked me off my feet. His 2^nd, Like Lions, blew me away. Hard Cash Valley? Good Lord. Panowich can flat out write. Hard to believe this is just his 3^rd outing. The maturity of his storytelling. The turn of a phrase. The depth of pain felt by his characters. The enormity of viciousness of the crimes. The body count. The twists in loyalty and in the story. Call it what you will: country noir, hick-lit, Redneck noir. I don’t care. Panowich is flat out one of the best new voices in fiction I’ve read . . . ever. Three books and he has shouldered his way into my power rotation. And that’s a first. Panowich is that great.

Available in May 2020.