It’s been six years for Ben Koenig.
Six years in hiding. Six years running. Six years staying one step ahead of the bounty hunters.
Six years.
Success means solitude. Unnoticed. Unrecognizable. Until he’s spotted in a no-name diner in some no-name town. Ben has been elevated to the Most Wanted list and the TV station has Ben’s picture for all to see. The owner calls the cops and a whole squad of heavily armed cops arrive all focused-on Ben. He is taken to jail where the local sheriff puts him in lockup, but not under arrest, according to specific directions on his ‘to be detained’ directive:
1. He is extremely dangerous but only if he feels threatened.
2. He is not to be arrested. Only detained.
3. Ignore any credentials he may have. Confirm identity with a one-inch scar above his right eye in color of a fish bone.
4. Call a specific phone #.
5. Keep him secure, give him reading material from the provided list. He’s a Stanley Kubrick fan.
6. Feed him his choice of items on the attached menu. With a chocolate milkshake.
Six years ago, Deputy US Marshall Ben Koenig led a raid on a truly disgusting operation. In the process of the raid, Ben kills a 17yo boy – the son of one of Russia’s organized crime syndicates in the US. Ben goes to meet with the father. Dad knew the kid was a sick and demented. Wont’ be missed. But in his line of work, to ignore Ben’s actions would be akin to professional suicide so he would have to put a bounty on his head. Ben and the Russian work out a ‘deal’ of sorts. Give Ben a day or two to tie up some loose ends before putting the bounty on the dark web.
Six years he’s been avoiding the bounty hunters. But his past is calling.
The daughter of Mitchell Burridge, the Director of the US Marshall’s Service, has been kidnapped. Burridge needs Ben’s help. He’d never find Ben on his own so he put Ben on the Most Wanted list and let the public and law enforcement community find him.
Martha Burridge is a student at Georgetown Univ in DC studying forensic accounting. She was working on a paper about the death of a Hoya student maybe eight years ago. He and his best friend at Georgetown went rock climbing in far southern Texas. A rope anchor became dislodged, and the boy fell to his death. The distraught friend eventually went back to school. When he left, he started a green energy business naming it in honor of his dead friend. The business is a solar energy farm in the midst of fossil fuel loving Texans while bringing tons of jobs and money to Gauntlet, TX.
Ben heads for Texas to learn what he could about the solar energy business, the student’s death, the surviving friend, and most importantly, Martha Burridge.
Ain’t long before the first body shows up. Then another. Then another. Not all Ben’s doing. It’s when the company CEO and overall town savior gets kidnapped that the story heats up.
And does it ever heat up.
This is my first MW Craven book. Have to say that the writing style is quite reminiscent of Lee Child’s Jack Reacher. Much of Koenig’s thought processes and reasoning are downright Reacher-esque. And for me, that's fun. Koenig is indeed fearless. Nothing that gets in his way escapes the encounter unscathed. Resourceful and Resentful. That’s Koenig.
MW Craven is a Brit mystery writer of some note. He’s won or been nominated for most all the top mystery awards in England. The award I like is the Peculiar Crime Novel of the Year (aka: “the ‘most wanted’ prize in crime fiction”). He is the author of two other crime series: the Washington Poe series (6 books) and the Avison Fluke series (2 books). This is the first Ben Koenig book.
I liked this. A lot. Now to find some of his earlier works (Looks like The Botanist, in the Poe series, has achieved significant notoriety in the UK). Of course, the selection committee at the local library hasn’t seen the wisdom of getting any of Craven’s books. How downright rude.
ECD
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