Firetrap by Otho Eskin

#3 in Eskin's Marko Zorn mystery series based in Washington DC

This has an interesting twist right from the start. A member of the Big Pharma club is bringing a new product to market. A fentanyl competitor that is far more potent. Problem is that the product has been leaked and is showing up on the streets before anyone really knows or understands it. A couple brothers run the pharma company and they are ruthless when it comes to their products and bottom line.

Marko learns of this new drug when he is contacted by a DC underworld boss who wants the drug off the street (because it kills thereby cutting into their local sales and profits on less deadly addictive drugs). 

And therein lies the twist. Marko has roughly three ‘bosses’ on his butt for different reasons. The cops (of course), the local gang street marketeers, and the Pharma boys. And a key to the whole thing might be connected to a decades-old art theft.

Now I like Eskin/Zorn so far. DC-based (stomping grounds of my youth), clever and believable characters all wrapped up in a plot that just could happen.

And its an Oceanview Publishing product, a quality source for well-prepared mysteries. Can’t beat it. 

Thanks to Netgalley for the advance reviewer copy.

ECD

Head Shot by Otho Eskin

Even if you’re a DC homicide cop, getting shot at in your front yard is out of the ordinary. And that’s just chapter 1, page 1. Next day, you and your partner are called to a DC theater where the leading lady goes offstage after her last line and gets shot. Oh, forgot to mention that Detective Marko Zorn used to date the deceased actress back when he was a new-ish NYPD uniform cop and she was a starving artist.

But that’s just a sidelight. For some reason, the State Department has requested Zorn by name to be a part of the security detail for the visiting Prime Minister from Montenegro. Apparently, the request came from the visiting delegation. It’s not as though the Feds don’t have enough people to provide security, but SecState insists, much to Zorn’s chagrin.

The new Prime Minister of Montenegro is a liberal opposition leader who came up through a student protest movement back in the day. She was elected to their version of the House. A coup brought down a neofascist government, but not before the outgoing head of state orchestrated some racial cleansing. The primary ruler and brother fled to Chicago away from the mob bent on revenge.

Zorn has a side gig. He’s on-call for a fixer of sorts. A recent assignment was to find the brothers in Chicago. Just find them. That’s it. But as Zorn learns the atrocities committed, he lets it slip when and where the former dictator would be transiting from shelter to car. A crowd of ex-pats who had lost family arrives, surrounds the prick and beats him to death.

Right before Zorn meets with SecState, his fixer calls him again. Wants to hire him to provide some security to the current PM. Now he’s serving two masters. And he wants to find whoever killed his former paramour.

Two more people connected with the theater killing end up dead. A code clerk at the Montenegro embassy also ends up dead. It’s obvious that somehow, the two circumstances are connected because the MO of each murder is the same. And Zorn’s fixer tells him that one of the world’s most expensive assassins has been hired to kill the PM and Zorn before the end of her state visit. Juggling has become Zorn's middle name what with the two cases, 5 or so victims, local/national/international politics, his 3 bosses, local and foreign security. And this guy doesn't like to carry a weapon.

Eskin’s initial Marko Zorn was Reflecting Pool, a DC-based mystery that I liked a great deal. Zorn gets it done, legally or otherwise. Zorn knows DC and the political scene and Eskin keeps this plot moving with his foot slammed to the accelerator. The story takes place over the week that the Prime Minister is in DC – that’s a lot to squeeze into a week, but Eskin handles the packed calendar like a seasoned pro. Guessing we haven’t seen the last of Marko Zorn. With Zorn around, DC is in safe hands.

The Reflecting Pool by Otho Eskin

Meet Marko Zorn,  detective with the Washington DC Metropolitan Police. Zorn just happened to be the first law enforcement officer on the scene of a pre-dawn murder. A young woman who had drowned in the Reflecting Pool between the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument. Sandra Wilcox is found in the shallow pool facing up, eyes wide open, Her deep blue eyes remind him of his older sister who was raped and murdered nearly 20 years before.

This is way more than just another of the myriad of DC murders. Wilcox was part of the Secret Service having risen to serve on the protective detail of FLOTUS. Some think her rise in the Service was a little too swift. The reflecting pool is technically the jurisdiction of the US Park Service. And, obviously, it happened in DC. That means the Secret Service, the Park Service, DC Metro, and the FBI are all at each others throat arguing jurisdiction. Seeing as how DC Metro isn't federal, they have the least to say. About the only disinterested agency is the CIA.

But Zorn is an uncompromising detective who only wants to find out the truth, jurisdiction be damned. Another thing about Zorn . . . he doesn't give a shit who he pisses off. He could care less about government officials telling him to back off. National security? Yeah, right. POTUS, FLOTUS, Chief of Staff, Secret Service, dozens of other White House staffers can't seem to get through his thick skull, Justice for Sandra Wilcox matters. Truth matters. That's it.  

So what if Zorn's pursuit of the truth might put his partner in someone's crosshairs. Heck, most of the detective service is quite unhappy with him.

The investigation ends up unwrapping some curious details of Sandra's life and death not to mention her rapid ascent in the Secret Service.  And because no DC detective only works one case at a time, Zorn manages to douse a developing gang war over a delivery of weapons and a threat of a possible presidential assassination. It's been a busy few weeks for Zorn.

Eskin spent a career in various aspects of government. His literary history is as a playwright so this is his first novel. Let's hope Zorn has a long and contentious career working DC crime. This is good stuff. Really good. 

West Coast Don reviewed this a couple months ago. He liked it, too. 

 ECD

Reflecting Pool

While spending a career in government, Reflecting Pool is apparently the first novel for Otho Eskin, who is an accomplished playwright. It’s my opinion that Eskin would do well to continue writing in the murder mystery genre, and perhaps he plans to make a series with his protagonist, Marko Zorn. This was a very fun read. Zorn is a detective with the Washington DC Metropolitan Police. While it is uncommon to read about an uncompromising character who is in pursuit of the truth, Eskin has taken Zorn to a new level. In the course of this story, Zorn pisses off nearly everyone he encounters, including the president’s underlings, the president himself, the president’s wife, the Secret Service, and the investigating members of the FBI and National Park Service. In his singleness of purpose, he put his rookie partner in great danger, so his own entire staff was most unhappy with him. Zorn mostly spared involvement with the CIA.

Zorn just happened to be the first person to discover a body of a young woman who had drowned in the Reflecting Pool that lies between the Lincoln Memorial and the Capital Building. Underwater and facing upwards, he was struck by the deep blue color of her eyes, and she reminded him of his older sister who had been raped and murdered nearly 20 years before. Of course, there were immediate turf wars over jurisdiction for the crime, especially with the FBI, the Secret Service because the deceased woman, Sandra Wilcox, had been part of the presidential protection brigade, and the National Park Service. Zorn was told by the president that this death was a matter of national security, that he was being ordered to drop the case, but Zorn thought it would be an injustice to do so.

By the end of the book, Zorn had figured out the surprising details that led to the death of Wilcox, but the author also added Zorn’s successful efforts to deal with a raging street war between two gangs who were competing for a huge shipment of weapons, as well as an assassin who had been hired to kill the president. This was a good story, and I hope that the author writes another book about Marko Zorn.