Hostage by Kristina Ohlsson

October 10, 2011.

Four phone calls are received at Sabo, the Swedish state security service: a library, a government building, a department store, and the central train station are to be bombed. Sabo's counterterrorism unit is headed by the very intense Eden Lundell, recently hired away from the UK. Alex Recht is a Stockholm detective in the National Bureau of Investigation. Fredrika Bergman used to work for Alex in the police department but has since moved over to the Justice Department form the core of the investigative team; Swedish intelligence agencies know how to cooperate.

Zakaria Khelifi, an Algerian with Swedish residency, has appeared on Sabo's radar for a peripheral association with a known terrorist. The evidence is less than circumstantial, but enough for him to be detained and possibly deported. Bad timing because Parliment is set to debate the immigration issue that afternoon.

Four calls, four bombs to detonate on the quarter hour, disguised female voices, different cell phones, but all from roughly the same area near the airport. Just another gray autumn day in Stockholm . . . four false alarms. Tomorrow shouldn't be so bad.

October 11, 2011
Alex's son Erik is late, rushing to the airport. He is scheduled to be the co-pilot on SAS 573 non-stop Stockholm to New York for 400 Swedes and Americans. The flight captain is Karim Sassi, is a fav of the flight attendants and a highly respected captain, too. Lots of bad weather over New York so Karim asks for an additional five hours of fuel loaded in case they have to circle somewhere over the Atlantic.

Right after takeoff, the purser brings a note found in the 1st class lavatory to the captain. A bomb has been planted. The US government must close the Tennyson Cottage (one of those detention centers in Afghanistan) and the Swedes must release Zakaria Khelifi before the plane lands. Any deviation and the bomb will be detonated. Give the length of the flight plus the five hours of extra fuel, the authorities stil have limited time to figure out what to do.

What neither side will do is negotiate with the terrorists. Both sides must work together, but are hesitant to reveal too much to the other. The best option is for an emergency landing somewhere along the flight path, but Karim has flat out refused to vary from the terrorist's directions.

The investigation jumps from Zakaria's neighbors and acquaintances to Karim to the US security apparatus to the bomb threats to Germany to the note and other minor tidbits that may or may not be important that lead to an ending twist that I dare say no reader will have anticipated.

This is Ohlsson's 4th novel and I am absolutely positive that I will find a way to get #s 1-3. Ohlsson is one talented writer with expert experience in European intelligence units. Hostage is a relentless and breathless sprint over the duration of the flight to find out the who and the why of this horrific act. Start this when you have no pending interruptions. You'll be grabbed by Ohlsson's firm hand, dragged back and forth across the landscape of Stockholm, the escalating tension inside flight 573, and the unyielding pressure of the Americans desparate to avoid a 2nd 9/11. Expect bruises.

In brief . . . this novel kicks serious butt.

ECD

Soft Target by Stephen Hunter

Ok, I'm not usually one to post a review of a title previously reviewed here at MRB. West Coast Don posted his take on Hunter's latest, and rather than just drop a comment on that page, I'll add a few other thoughts on Hunter's latest.

1. As best I can recall, Ray Cruz began as a weekend pass for Bob Lee Swagger while he was raking up kills in Vietnam in Time to Hunt. I think he also has a bit of a cameo in Dead Zero, but I could be wrong on that. I don't remember exactly where Cruz and Swagger first meet up.

2. Nikki Swagger, Bob Lee's daughter, shows up in the books that have current day story line. She was front and center in Days of Thunder as a reporter in Bristol, TN. Here, she's working for the Minneapolis news media and ends up on network for her work on the hostage crisis in this book. Nick Memphis, the FBI agent (now assistant Director) appears in some way or another in all the Bob Lee books.

3. My partner in crime here at MRB, West Coast Don, forgot to mention a critical character in this book. The hostage crisis response by the Minnesota State Police is being run by their newly appointed head dog. Colonel Douglas Obobo is the first African-American superintendent of the state police. "He had the gift of inspiration, of making people believe, first in him, second in the mission, and third in the larger program that sustained the mission and in the administrative entity that embraced all." Son of a Kenyan grad student at Harvard and a Radcliffe anthropology major. He himself graduated from Harvard and Harvard Law. Joined the Boston PD as a beat cop then the Homicide Squad. A cop who 'never broke a case, arrested a suspect, won a gunfight, led a raid, or testified in court.' Next up was as the lead investigator for a Senate committee, then ass't commish of the Baltimore PD, chief in Omaha, now in Minnesota. On the fast track to be head of the FBI. He wins people, good and bad, with praise, compassion, and empathy. The days of the neanderthals are gone, he can reason with anybody. Hmmm. Bet you can't guess who Hunter modeled this character after. Read one interview where Hunter was stumbling with the story, but said once he had a handle on the Obobo character, the book wrote itself.

4. If books have a background theme, I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that Hunter tends to drift pretty far to the right side of the aisle, and this book is about how those who follow a charismatic leader like Obobo are ill prepared for the eventual time where the shit really hits the fan and the neanderthals like Cruz are what stands between good and evil, saying to evil, "you're gonna have to go through me" while the charismatic types grab their coat and run for cover to plot the spin for the adoring media.

5. As WCDon said, this book just flies. Could easily be a cover-to-cover, one sitting read. It's that gripping. It grabs your gut in the first chapter and loosens up only after the last jihadist is dead. Don't forget to breathe. As expected, Hunter stays near the top of my power rotation.

East Coast Don

Without Warning by Joel Rosenberg

Part 3 of the JB Collins trilogy picks up a few months after where part 2 (The First Hostage) left off - the rescue of the US President who had been kidnapped by ISIS.

JB Collins is the war correspondent for the NY Times. The award winning journalist is not above getting his hands dirty when it comes to revealing to the public that which the current administration seems intent on hiding, minimizing, or flat out ignoring. ISIS is a threat to the US and its leaders don't just need to be brought to justice. They need to be eliminated. Collins has seen it in the eyes of the ISIS leader, Abu Khalif, whom he has interviewed and is the only western individual to actually have seen Khalif in the flesh (I know, a take-no-prisoners hawk as a NY Times reporter seems a bit far fetched, but give Rosenberg some slack).

A few months earlier, Collins was instrumental in the President's rescue. A grateful President has invited Collins and his brother Matt to sit with the First Lady at the annual State of the Union Address. While appreciative of the efforts of the US security forces for his rescue, he still will not utter anything synonymous with 'radical' or 'extremist'. He prefers to use the drone force instead of sweeping in with insurmountable ground forces to wipe out ISIS, which is what JB vociferously encourages the President to do. To no avail.

During the SOTU address, mortars and howitzer shells, some loaded with sarin gas, reign down on the Capitol. While most of the heads of state escape, hundreds of others are killed. The next day, horror is inflicted on several other cities in a coordinated attack. Finally, because Khalif is seriously pissed off at Collins, a hit squad is dispatched to his family home in Maine.

And we aren't even to page 100 yet.

The President still neglects an all out offensive on ISIS so Collins secretly heads to the mideast in order to offer some help to security forces in Israel, Egypt, and Jordan (remember, he's one of the few to have ever seen Khalif in person). With relentless tenacity, a plausible trail on Khalif's location has been traced.

I'll admit. I'm a bit out of Rosenberg's loop. I had read and reviewed a number of his earlier books noting how prescient his stories were in regard to current day situations that ended up actually happening usually within a year of publication. While I'm not turned off by Rosenberg's evangelism and Christian witnessing, I guess I let it influence my staying current with his books. The JB Collins trilogy being a noteworthy omission in my reading enjoyment. Evangelism aside, Rosenberg writes some of the most compelling political thrillers that are centered in the political powder keg that is the middle east.  The first chapter tells us that the President's rescue (The First Hostage) had taken place a couple months earlier to which I sort of muttered to myself, 'looks like I've missed something here.' Does knowing the outcome of Part 2 mean I won't read it? Storytelling is in the details and Rosenberg has the details down pat. I mean, the audience always knew who the killer was, but we still watched Columbo. I like a good political thriller yarn, so I may just go back to parts 1 and 2. Even though I know just how thrilling part 3 ends.

ECD

The Secret Soldier by Alex Berenson

Part V of the John Wells saga.

John Wells is out of the CIA and living the quiet life with his North Conway, New Hampshire cop girlfriend. Been a civilian for 2 years now. Unfortunately, there is a loose end in the double agent Robinson who ran off at the end of Midnight House. A chance postcard to Robinson’s spouse alerts the CIA to send (ask) Wells to Montego Bay; if private citizen Wells tracks the guy down the CIA isn’t involved. Wells and Gaffan, a soldier he met in Afghanistan, perform the take down. No problemo.

About the same time, a coordinated series of terrorist attacks in Saudi Arabia kills hundreds. On the lead is a former Saudi security officer who believes that surviving a desert 4-wheeler accident years before is a call by Allah to form a group of loyal believers and wait for a mission. Bakr believes that the royal family has lost their way and the line of succession that King Abdullah wants is not what his brother Saeed thinks would be the best direction for a new Islamic republic.

This splinter cell is training in Syria and conducts an execution of King Abdullah’s granddaughter raising the stakes. Abdullah is at first shaken, then his anger is directed toward his brother, but he can’t verify anything. And he can’t use the Saudi police, the royal’s security force, or the Islamic police because Saeed controls them all. He needs someone totally outside who can find out if Saeed is behind this mess.

John Wells.

Now Wells hasn’t killed in 2 years, but he is pretty sure he will be killing again, real soon. He calls Gaffan and they start to track down clues through Egypt, Cyprus, Saudi Arabia, and Syria. The old skills never left him. As the great sage Don Henley once said, “You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.”

Bakr not only wants to bring down the House of Saud, he wants to provoke a war between Saudi Arabia and the US and has a pretty good plan – kidnap the American ambassador, make ridiculous demands, cut off some limbs, provoke the US to invade and voila, end of US presence 0n the Arabian peninsula. And he nearly pulls it off if not for Wells tracking the hostage to Mecca and uncovering damaging evidence about Saeed.

Now the palace intrigue may indeed be reminiscent of some old Shakespeare play or Greek tragedy; I wouldn’t know. But the House of Saud is seriously screwed up. This was another believable tale of high-energy espionage with uber agent and alpha dog, but emotionally bruised John Wells, plowing the road. Can’t say I could see any clues about where the next book will take us, but wherever it goes, I guarantee, I’ll be there. A quick run through Berensen’s first 5 books ends here. Now I have to patiently await his next.

East Coast Don

Backlash by Brad Thor

#19 in the Scot Harvath series. 

In #18 (Spy Master), Harvath had started to assume the inevitable role as CEO of The Carleton Group because the old man, Reed Carlton, had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's. And while Spy Master presented Harvath in his first attempts at running the show, he was still a field operative at heart. As Carlton's condition deteriorated, Harvath, Lara (his new wife), Lydia (a former CIA boss now Carlton CFO), and a Navy corpsman caring for Carlton have gathered up in Maine to be with Carlton where he was living out his final days. Right up to when Lara screams the last words in #18: "Run!"

#19 picks up right after Lara's plea.  Maine police come upon the house to find four corpses all murdered execution-style. Harvath is missing. Given Harvath's history, the directors of both the CIA and FBI fly in. The local cops think Harvath has gone rogue. PTSD claiming another victim, but neither director buys it.

A transport plane out of Murmansk (way the hell north in the Russian wilderness bordering Finland) has mechanical trouble and is going down hard. Passengers are a team of mercs, their boss, and a single bound, gagged, and hooded passenger. Spirited out of Maine through Canada to Russia. You know who it is. 

But the US government can't really intervene, at least not overtly, even though a Russian incursion on US soil to kill and kidnap US citizens is an act of war. That doesn't stop the FBI's Hostage Rescue director and all the forces behind The Carlton Group from doing what they can to locate and then work up a rescue plan.  

From here on, Thor takes we readers on torturous ride through the Murmansk Oblast as Harvath battles against the brutal winter weather, wolves, frozen rivers, outback towns, a commercial band of mercs (The Wagner Group), helicopter gunships, waist deep blowing snow. Each encounter worse than the previous. The entire story tells we poor schlubs what SERE training (Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape) by the SEALs teaches one when down behind enemy lines.

And while this is mostly a story of chase and evasion, make no bones about it, Harvath has lost three important people in his life. During the hours and days mostly alone and cold in the brutal wintry wilderness, his focus in on two things: survival and revenge. And Thor says it succinctly:  "
Revenge was bitter medicine. It didn't cure suffering. It didn't provide closure. It only hollowed you our further." When he gets out, those responsible will pay, dearly. Harvath is seriously hollowed out.

Hopefully, you all have read a bunch of Thor's books. I started in at the beginning from a casual stroll through my local library stacks and am fully up to date. 19 for 19. And here is what is impressive.
Every one is better than the previous (OK, maybe The Athena Project was a bit of a hiccup). But the development of Thor as a masterful and mature storyteller is something future thriller writers really need to study. In the absence of Clancy and Flynn, if Thor isn't the unquestioned leader of the parade of current thriller authors, he is definitely in the Top 5.

ECD

#1495. Total Empire by AJ Tata

Dateline: desert east of Dahkla, Morocco (it's a real place. I looked it up):

General Garrett Sinclair and team attempt to rescue an American being held hostage by some breakaway group in NW Africa. Dahkla is a hub of activity in what used to be Western Sahara, which has been annexed by Morocco. A land grab not universally recognized. 

Like most all clandestine rescues, the team hits a roadblock. Almost looks like the bad guys had been tipped. In the process of the rescue, Sinclair’s senior non-com, Sgt Major Sly Morgan, gets captured and is beheaded on the spot. By all appearances, Sgt Major Morgan had been targeted.

At the funeral back home in NC, Morgan’s daughter Zoey tells Garrett that her dad had been gathering intel in the area including notes about a meeting between governmental officials from the US, France, and China where the topic of discussion was the so-called China US Partnership (CUSP). While some agreements have been signed, mostly about China being transparent about its intentions in the region, the real reason for the partnership is the proverbial New World Order where China and the US establish a universal worldwide government (with China having plans on shouldering the US aside). Zoey is hot for revenge of her father’s executioner and disappears.

Garrett tries to alert the President (a childhood friend of the General) about the behind-the-scenes goals of CUSP and who is plotting behind the scenes. Plus, he's butting heads with the Secretaries of State, Defense, and the President’s staff advisors, all of whom favor this new world order. It’s bound to happen eventually so best be on board at the start. Sinclair wants to go after Zoey but is expressly told not to intervene. Why he isn't to go find her doesn't hold water.

Of course, loyalty to Sly Morgan and daughter Zoey take precedence resulting in the General’s teams reassembling to find Zoey wherever she is being held in the western Sahara. Upon learning that Sinclair headed back to Africa, the Sec’y Defense advises the President to cut off all support leaving Sinclair and team effectively in the dark with no resources.

What they find in the sands east of Dahkla are two separate but connected expeditions. One, mostly a diversion, is a treasure hunt for untold hidden wealth in an area called The Eye Of Africa (look that up, too) and possible proof of Atlantis. The other is the development of a Chinese base for land-based lasers that will be used to target orbiting hypersonic nuclear missiles. The idea is China launches these missiles/satellites into orbit. When a target is selected, the lasers signal and target the missiles for ground targets.And they aren't hesitant about using them.

Without Presidential direction, Sinclair realizes he has multiple tasks. First, find Zoey. Second, learn what he can about this Atlantis dig. Third, gather intel on the growing Chinese presence and their goals. Fourth, if anything happens, he’ll need to incapacitate the laser system. He, his Apache pilot, his team of about a half dozen loyal operatives, and, currently, the world’s best sniper, a Moroccan now have to plan on the fly to attack on multiple fronts. Walk in the park, right? If that isn't bad enough, the General also has to keep looking over his shoulder for DC-based interference.

The boys at MRB have reviewed one book by AJ Tata. It too was a bit outlandish. General Sinclair is a lead-from-the-front type, refusing to sit in a room watching satellite imagery of an ongoing op. As such, he’s considered a borderline rogue warrior who should be heading for retirement, not crawling through sand caves and engaging most anyone who doesn’t look like him or his handpicked team. 

This book (and I’m guessing his 14 other novels) have two things in common. Not much character development and plenty of slam bang action. And that’s fine. Tata has a huge readership, so the story arcs of his books are resonating with a considerable audience. As military actions books go, this one’s got a ton of action. Given Tata’s history in the military, the descriptions must be on point . . . if a bit over the top.

Thanks to the good folks at St Martin’s Press for making a review copy available on NetGalley.

Available March 21, 2023

East Coast Don

 

Step on a Crack by James Patterson and Michael Ledwidge

Michael Bennett is NYC’s chief hostage negotiator who happens to be the foster parent for 10 children, thanks to his wife’s generous heart. But, his wife is now dying of cancer, and is hospitalized in the final stages of that disease. Meanwhile, the former president’s wife, Caroline Hopkins, dies unexpectedly from what is a cleverly disguised murder. Then, at her all-stars-only funeral at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, there is a terrorist takeover with many hostages taken, all of whom are wealthy celebrities or famous politicians. Bennett is in charge of negotiating with Jack, the lead terrorist, but he does not know about the inside guy, “The Neat Man,” who has predicted every move that the police and Bennett would make. The bad guys get their money, all $73 million, and all but one gets away – at least at first. The story line is a simple one, and there are not that many characters involved. There were some very interesting minor characters like Bennett’s grandfather, a priest, and his nanny, Mary Catherine. At the same time, the story is compelling and surprising. Patterson does a good job making Michael human, as well as portraying the agony of having a dying wife and the joy of raising his remarkable children. This was a quick and enjoyable read, one of the better “airplane” books that I’ve read in a while.

Die Trying by Lee Child

Die Trying is Lee Child’s second Jack Reacher novel.  Having become a Reacher fan only in the past year, I decided I needed to go back for some context… experience the character development of Jack Reacher… see what makes him tick.  Die Trying was a good place to start.

Reacher retired from the Army MP’s 14 months earlier and was traveling around the U.S.  He took odd jobs to supplement his pension and savings.  Most recently he worked as a doorman in Chicago.  One day he is walking down the street and sees an attractive young lady walking with a crutch who needs help carrying her dry cleaning.  Three thugs pull up in a Lexus with plans to kidnap the woman.  Reacher feels compelled to assist the damsel in distress and allows himself to be captured.  He and the woman, Holly Johnson are handcuffed together, thrown in the back of a panel van and hauled across the country.  He learns she is not only an FBI agent stationed in Chicago but her father is the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of the U.S. Military.  Normally very capable in self defense, Holly recently injured her knee while playing soccer, thus the crutch.  The kidnappers are members of a Montana based right-wing militia group with plans to declare independence from the USA and escape consequences by holding Holly hostage.

The Director of the FBI is instructed by the president to keep the kidnapping under wraps, hoping it will just go away so he can avoid political embarrassment.  But the Chicago FBI chief can’t just ignore the crime and gets approval to investigate with only two agents.  They find the dry cleaner and discover Holly’s abduction is recorded on the store’s security video tape.  They identify Reacher in the recording and assume he is one of the kidnappers. They locate his former CO, General Garber who declares, “I don’t know why he’s there, but I promise you he’s clean, and he’s going to do what needs doing, or he’s going to die trying.”  True to his military reputation, Reacher’s tactical training, analytical skills, and perseverance kick in as he manages to elude his execution day after day.  He is compelled to help the innocent cult members trapped unwittingly by the militia leader but Reacher never loses focus on his first objective, to free Holly Johnson.  A master in the art of combat, Reacher never hesitates to dispense with the enemy.. violently, efficiently, and single handedly.

Die Trying proved the perfect conduit to research the Jack Reacher character, the classic hero we know only in fiction.  The Lone Ranger, Zorro, Batman like figure is driven only by his need to help the helpless… do whatever it takes, regardless of the consequences.  He exudes self confidence, fully trusting his training, skill and judgment… often above higher authority.  This testosterone charged character combined with Child’s talent to build suspense from one situation to the next without pause, places this author squarely on the A list for men reading books.

The Informant by Thomas Perry

Just because you’ve been contracted by the Mafia doesn’t mean you may not end up in their crosshairs. It’s only business.

Not this time.

When Michael Schaeffer lost his parents when he was about 12, the local butcher took him in. The butcher was reasonably successful at his craft who took really good care of his best customers, the wives in particular. He taught Michael his ways and brought him up to be the best. In this case, the best was not as a meat cutter, but the best in the butcher’s part-time job – contract killer.

And Michael flourished. He scored his first kill at 16 and by 19 he was an independent contractor whose main employers were the various Mafia families who hired him to take out folks who had wronged the family no matter if the target was inside or outside La Cosa Nostra.

But, one lesson Michael learned was that business partners don’t cross each other. When one boss makes the unfortunate decision to have Michael snuffed after a job, Michael takes it personally. He kills an enemy of the boss, cuts off the head, hands, and feet for burial on said boss’s horse farm in upstate NY. Then calls the FBI and tips them off to the burial, landing the boss in prison for life.

Frank Tosca is a ruthless underboss in the old vein of Don’s back in the day. After about 10 years of the mob floundering around with his boss in prison, Frank is convinced that if the other crime families agree with him to kill The Butcher’s Boy (as he’s known by the mob), by doing so will give him the power to rise to the absolute boss of all the families. He arranges a meeting of the main 25 family heads at a dude ranch outside of Phoenix.

Frank had sent a couple slugs looking for Michael, finding him married and living near Bath, UK. Michael is none too pleased, kills them easily, and learns Tosca is behind the kill order. Michael heads back to the US and starts to track down Tosca, but has been out of the game for a decade and wants to know the current hierarchy, so he contact the Justice Dep’t organized crime wonk, Elizabeth Waring, who first deduced his existence about 20 years ago.

She doesn’t give him much, preferring to bring him in as an informant, which he declines. He whacks the next guys up the Tosca chain, a couple right under the noses of the Feds, and learns of the desert meeting. He arrives to find the 25 bosses surrounded by about 200 soldiers. He sneaks in (all those young soldiers had never seen him, only heard tales. It has been a while since he was active), learns of the consensus by the bosses, follows Tosca to his cottage, cuts his throat, and slips out past the coming FBI takedown of the conference; Waring found out where it was being held, too.

Michael finds out the mob is really pissed off. Now it's personal.

A normal guy might slink off to parts unknown, but Michael has decided to convince the mob that it is too dangerous to hunt him down and systematically crisscrosses the country taking out the heads and underbosses of the biggest families, and whoever is unfortunate enough to be nearby. As his butcher mentor once told him, "Anybody you kill by accident is just one you won't have to kill on purpose."

Waring knows the Mafia will come after him, probably hiring mercs to hunt him down and manages to offer witness protection, which Michael again ignores, preferring to continue to take out big shots. One team of mercs learns that Michael and Waring are connected somehow and go to her home near DC to hold Waring’s family hostage until Michael resurfaces.

Which he does.

I picked up this title from a trip to B/N a few months ago and got on the list at the library. Perry has about 20 titles to his name and this is the third of the Butcher’s Boy series (with Butcher’s Boy and Sleeping Dog). If I read Perry’s website correctly, the Butcher Boy books are spaced (copyright date) 10 years apart and the first won Perry an Edgar for debut novel. Stephen King said that Perry’s 2010 release, Strip, was a Top 10 Summer Read and he has had a number of NYT Best Sellers. Not that I know every crime writer, but this guy’s new to me and he really has got the chops. I think I like the concept behind this series, the plotting (OK, there are a few leaps of faith that may seem a bit far fetched), and the character development and will try to find the other 2 books as well as Strip. Hey, King’s opinion resonates with me as another of his must-read lists turned me to Olen Steinhauer and The Tourist.

East Coast Don

#1512 The Devil You Know by Chris Hauty

Did you know that each Supreme Court Justice has a protection team (after the most recent confirmation hearings, we shouldn’t be surprised)? Round the clock. Justice Anthony Gibbons lives in Fairfax County, VA. The shift change of the guards has just been done. The day watch is Martin Barnes. Vet, but like all vets, he’s brought back memories better left in hell. He’s been threatened. His family will be tortured beyond comprehension unless he carries out a job. It’s simple. 

Kill Justice Gibbons. Today.

He fights with his inner demons and loses. Strangles Justice Gibbons in the kitchen then turn his service weapon on himself. Media presents it as a cop gone seriously rogue.

Haley Chill’s demons are messing with her too. Back home in nowhere West Virginia for funeral of a school friend who OD’d on opioids. Drowning her misery in tequila shots, she tears up a bar after being hit on by a local. Next day, she awakens to see April Wu sitting in her motel room. Problem is April died (in an earlier book) and now haunts Haley as sort of a ghost of conscious present. And Haley has no recollection of the bar episode last night.

You may recall that Haley Chill is an operative for something called the Deeper State. These are the folks behind so many conspiracy theories. Their goal is to preserve the nation from (mostly) fuckups by elected official. But she’s a mess. In recent books she’s survived a miscarriage, April Wu’s death, the deaths of childhood friends – all instances that have send Haley into a tailspin that ends in the bottom of a bottle.

After the death of Justice Gibbons, the US Marshall’s service has ramped up the Supreme’s protective details. Her Deeper State controller sends Haley to Hawaii where Justice Anita Fisher is vacationing at her vacation home (she’s ‘old money’ wealthy). Haley must don her forged FBI credentials to be an unwelcomed addition to the USMS protective team. Not a bad gig if she’d been welcomed. Haley doesn’t know much about the most recent court appointee. Justice Fisher is not just new, she’s young (mid 40’s), single and due to get married to a best-selling author tomorrow. Small wedding at Justice Fisher’s home, and the USMS says they’ve vetted every invitee and each person working the wedding. It’ll be fine. Unknown to all, Deputy Shaw (the head of Justice Fisher’s USMS team) has received the same phone call Martin Barnes received.

Back up a week or so. A team of 5 Mexican’s has arrived at the Islands. A team leader, a pair of brothers, a guy who lives on killings, and the new addition with dyed blond hair and a history as a surfer. All are highly trained by the Mexican military and since discharged, have been recruited by a drug cartel to handle the messy stuff. Most of them are good family men, love their wives, adore their children. Veritable pillars of their communities . . . until the cartel calls with an assignment. Everything is compartmentalized. They don’t know the full story of why they find themselves in Paradise. They only know their job: kidnap a bus filled with school children and hold them hostage. When the time comes, they may have to kill them all (but the leader devises a plan to further enrichen the team: organ harvesting for the black market). They snatch a bus carrying kids, mostly around 7-14yo, and stash them in an abandoned bomb shelter.

Haley’s job is to help protect Justice Fisher, but she can’t just ignore those children despite what her Deeper State handler says. As you might guess, a number of things kind of coalesce for Haley: the wedding, her fuckup at the reception, the kidnapped kids, Deputy Shaw, Fisher’s husband, one very brave kid, the surfer/kidnapper, and even Justice Fisher. The last half of the book simply flies by.

Haley Chill #5 (somehow we missed Insurrection Day. We’ll get to it. Promise). Hauty again puts Haley Chill in some challenging, but also quite believable circumstances. And the reasons behind why those two sitting Supreme Court justices are targeted will make you even less sympathetic to power brokers doing whatever is necessary to hold onto their power base.

This is the 4^th Haley Chill book we’ve reviewed. And for good reason. See a new title by Chris Hauty? Get it. Get home. Clear your calendar. No need for coffee to help with late night reading. Just get comfortable. You’re gonna be there for quite a while.

Publication date: May 23, 2023.

Thanks to Emily Bestler Books (one of my 2 favorite publishers) and NetGalley for making an advance reviewer copy available.

East Coast Don

 

 

We Were Killers Once by Becky Masterman

For you true crime aficionados out there. Do these names ring a bell?

The Clutter family, Perry Smith, Richard Eugene Hickock.

No? Let me add one more name: Truman Capote. Bet you know now.

Those were the primary subjects of Capote’s In Cold Blood. But this isn’t a retelling or some new twist to what remains one of the most visible slaughters of our time. Buried within Capote’s book and the various archives of the crime is one little remembered detail. When Smith and Hickock were driving the 400 miles across Kansas to the Clutter home, they picked up a 14yo boy and his ill grandfather who were hitchhiking to Colorado. It’s this little bit of karma that Masterman jumps on.

The boy is one Jeremiah Beaufort. A very troubled boy. when he was about 10 years old, he an his annoying little brother were messing around with their dad’s shotgun. You can guess what happens. Said it was an accident but he got sent to juve detention for a couple years. When he got out, his parents told him to get lost. Ended up with his grandfather and the eventual cross-country trip. They’d been gathering bottles for the deposit to buy food. Jeremiah sees some glittering in a field. Smith/Hickock pull over and let the kid out. Takes his very ill grandfather by the arm, walks toward their treasure, sits his grandfather down, and leaves him there.

Smith/Hickock are spooked, but not enough to dump the kid. So the kid is now perp #3 and participates in the robbery and killing of the Clutter family. Now all three are on the run. To Mexico. To California. To Florida. To Miami. To Sarasota. To Tampa. On the drive to Vegas, Jeremiah takes off. While in Vegas, the FBI finally catch up with Smith/Hickock.

They are, of course, charged with the Clutter murders, but also a family named Walker from Sarasota because the M.O. was the same and they were in Sarasota at the same time. But they didn’t do it. And the Walker case was never solved.

So much for history. It’s now 55 years later. Beaufort had been caught up in the three strikes and you are out for a series of drug trafficking crimes in Florida. But his sentence was commuted, and he was released. He has been panicked for quite some time. In all the hubbub about the Clutter case (multiple revisions of confessions), apparently Hickock requested a priest to hear (and read) his confession prior to his execution. In it, he straightened out a number of misconceptions, including the truth behind the Walker killings. If that written confession gets out, Beaufort will be facing execution.

The priest who heard the confession is dying from cancer. Upon his death, a sealed envelope was to be delivered to a protégé of the priest, Carlo, now a retired philosophy professor living in Tucson.

Through his own doggedness, Beaufort tracks down Carlo and plots how to find out if he does indeed have the forgotten confession. But he runs into a buzz saw of an opponent: Carlo’s wife is Brigit Quinn, retired FBI (and her own ghosts and demons). Being a suspicious sort, she notices a number of things about Beaufort that simply don’t add up. Now two are looking for the same thing, and while Quinn is a whole lot better at the looking part, Beaufort is a whole lot better at the stealing-hostage taking-killing part.

I have to admit. About a third of the way into this book, I was ready to put it down and just move on. Not only does Masterman jump back and forth between Beaufort and Quinn, but also across time for Beaufort from his days in prison to his intersection with Smith/Hickok to his history as a child and his search for the hidden confession. Got to the point where it was hard to keep straight who and when. For me, I would’ve liked each chapter to have had a heading (who) and a date (when).

But I struggled on. The 2^nd half had less bouncing around and the story became (mostly) linear (helpful for my aged brain) and much much more exciting. The last third, as both close in on Hickock’s confession, downright flew in overdrive as Masterman brought all the loose ends together to a breathless end. This is the 4^th in her Brigit Quinn series. I think I might be trying to find #1, Rage Against the Dying. Here's hoping the library has a copy.

ECD

Back Door Man by Dave Buschi

James Kolinsky. Scholarship wrestler. Math major. A techie. Busted out of a number of failed startups. Specialist is digital security. Gets married (to a woman estranged from her oil roughneck father). Fathers two little girls. Accepts a job at CompTec. A company that backs up information in massive server farms. The biggest and best in the business. And James is at the center of its security. Not the head dog. A doer. A drone. Reliable. 10 years. Raleigh, North Carolina.

Five big shots: the COO of CompTec, a Russian mobster, a Chinese warlord, a British financier, a Zurich banker. They work up a scheme. Crash the financial networks for 24 hours, during which they transfer as much money as they can. Estimates are upwards of $60 billion each. To be successful, they need to find a patsy. A nobody who they can plant bread crumbs that will lead investigators on a trail to the patsy. A disgruntled employee whose revenge against the company is to crash the financial network. Has to have the technical savvy for the trail to be believable.

James Kolinsky.

Overnight, credit cards, ATMs, most bank computers all seize up. The only money you have is what’s in your pocket. And the public freaks all over the planet. Kolinsky is in a panic when he checks his balance online and finds that the process of draining his accounts has started. Cell phones are jammed. He has to get home, but a subordinate says the problem may have originated in their own server farm.

Ah, but his co-worker is one of ‘them’ and getting him into the server farm is a ruse. While trying to trace the problem, Kolinsky manages to trace the information flow and starts to form some suspicions.

Bad guys invade Kolinsky’s home, taking his wife and children hostage. Her father, trying to make good with his daughter, wants to make sure they are OK and drives up unannounced.

The bad guys soon learn . . . Kolinsky may be a drone, but he can get a bit of an attitude when his family is threatened. He’s seen the digital trail leading to the 5 guys driving this havoc. So he sends them a little gift; a simple virus. Then he’s off to get to his family.

Think I came across this title from Goodreads.com. A little bit of Hitchcock’s wrong man theme, a little bit of Die Hard. A whole lot of detail about cyber-crime, hackers, and digital storage. Despite how dull that might sound, Buschi makes it cook. An amazingly fast read that was consistently 4 of 5 stars on other review sites. This was a story of a single day, and what a day it was.  Kindled his next book and I can’t wait to get at it, and it's rated even higher. A very worthy diversion for those needing a diversion. Trust me.

East Coast Don

Enemy at the Gates by Vince Flynn and Kyle Mills

The nice thing about the Mitch Rapp series is that each successive book shows Mitch aging. Mellowing out a bit. More focused on his friends and family and less on wiping out America’s enemies. The underlying theme of Enemy is protecting his family and getting back to them. He has fortified living arrangements in Virginia and in South Africa where he spends most of his time these days.

It’s finally happened. This first trillionaire. Nicholas Ward. Made billions across multiple disciplines like tech, communications, transportation, pharma. You name it. His fingerprints can be found all over the place. Now he is focused on improving global humanity. He is financially supporting Dr. David Chism in his search for the holy grail of medicine – an antiviral that can be used to treat and prevent most every viral bug on the planet from COVID right down to the common cold.

And Chism is getting close. So close that people whose livelihood is based on treating sick people would like to delay his research. Many of the raw materials that Chism needs are in the Ugandan jungles. But that has good and bad points. Uganda is good because that kind of isolation is good for his research. It’s not so good in that a local terrorist with a god complex, Gideon Auma, has been trying to start his vision of a unified Africa (of course under his leadership) by starting a war between Uganda and its neighbor to the west, the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Any terrorist worth his salt needs money. And through a complicated set of channels, Auma has been hired to kidnap Chism. A raid on the research compound nearly wipes out the research effort, but that can all be rebuilt. Chism as a hostage should bring a handsome payment from Nicholas Ward. But Chism and a couple colleagues escaped into the jungle and have yet to be found.

Because both Chism and Ward are Americans, the CIA and the White House are concerned. The new President, Anthony Cook, is one part dreamer and one part a pragmatist. He dreams of a gentler world but realizes the necessity of people like Ward who can get things done that a government can’t. He also realizes that much of the big money that got him to the White House will be severely damaged if Chism/Ward find that miracle anti-viral. He also isn’t a fan of the over-the-top methods of diplomacy that Mitch Rapp practices.

It becomes apparent that the raid on the research facility was a bit more organized. When one of Irene Kennedy’s IT nerds spots an internal breach of the CIA’s background information about Nicholas Ward, it starts to look like there is a mole within the CIA that is feeding info to outsiders that manages to reach Auma. Ergo, a well-planned and mostly successful assault on a reasonably well fortified compound.

Director Kennedy puts a really off the books plan in play. She brings Mitch (and his team of contractors) out of domestic malaise. Their job: find Chism. Use Ward (and his money) to restart the research facility, and put Auma’s army out of business. Oh, and conduct a mole hunt within the Langley headquarters from the jungles of Uganda all the while keeping the President out of the loop.

I’ve said it in earlier reviews. Kyle Mills has expertly picked up the Mitch Rapp saga following Vince Flynn’s passing a few years ago. Kudos to Simon and Schuster and Emily Bestler Books for bring Mills aboard. This story shows two sides of Rapp. His domestic side with his wife and stepdaughter at home in Virginia and South Africa (his wife’s home country). We also see the devastation he can reign down on enemies that don’t have America’s best interests at heart. And we see his cunning as he closes the net on the mole within the CIA. Hard to find any weaknesses in Mills presentation of another Mitch Rapp winner.

Thanks to the good folks at Simon and Schuster for the advance reviewer copy. Always a thrill when a package arrives with their return address. And like I’ve said over and over on this blog. Look to see who publishes a book. Of all the books I’ve read from Emily Bestler Books, each has been a winner.

Enemy at the Gates goes on sale September 14, 2021. Line up, folks.

Daylight by David Baldacci

David Baldacci has written a 4-book series about FBI Special Agent Atlee Pine, and I’ve recently reviewed the first two books, Long Road to Mercy and A Minute to Midnight. The third novel is Daylight. While the books could be read individually, this series was clearly meant to be read in order. The overall theme is that Atlee has grown up with remarkable tragedies. We now note that her parents were drinking and smoking dope into the wee hours on the night that an intruder broke into their home, caused Atlee to have a skull fracture which nearly killed her, and then kidnapped her identical twin sister, Mercy. While Atlee recovered, her twin was never seen again. On Atlee’s 19^th birthday, her father committed suicide, and it was not long thereafter, when Atlee came home from college to find that her mother had disappeared. Despite her expert abilities in finding people, Atlee had never been able to get any information about her mother.

 

It was the kidnapping that gave Atlee the motivation to join the FBI, not wanting others to suffer the losses that she had endured. After a rapid rise through the ranks, she eventually decided to leave the metro areas and to opt for a one-person office in St. George, Utah. She was the nearest federal officer to the Grand Canyon where she could operate on her own. Atlee learned that her mother had been doing some undercover work for an unnamed government branch that led to an important conviction and incarceration of a major Mafia figure, which led to seeking revenge against Atlee’s mother. The kidnapping of her sister and the near death experience of Atlee, then six years old, was the result of this revenge.

 

Much of the action of the three novels has to do with the ongoing search for Mercy. But, Atlee has a talent for stumbling into other cases that benefit from her attention. However, that always takes her away from the primary search for her sister. The other cases get increasingly complicated as the three books progress. In this book, there is a very high level government corruption happening, and as Atlee uncovered more information, some senior people are being hidden from her, or are not being compliant, like the Chair of the House Ways and Means Committee and a Deputy of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

 

By the end of the third book, Atlee has learned that her sister is probably still alive although she has endured unspeakable horrors of torture, and it is possible that she murdered the people who were keeping her hostage over many years. She was thought to be severely emotionally damaged, and after her escape, the trail for her had gone cold. In addition, she learned that her father’s death had been faked and her mother may have joined him and are living somewhere with hidden identities.

I'm leaving in the morning to travel through Arizona, and I have the fourth book and concluding book Mercy on tape to listen to during the drive.

Tsar by Ted Bell

I took a break from the historical fiction and returned to a political thriller I received for Christmas.

Tsar is an acronym for a Russian corporation called Technology, Science, And Research owned by a genius who is a little off his rocker.

The Russian bear is awakening from its post break up slumber and the US and the Brits are concerned, opening up a new ultrasecret spy network based in Bermuda. The story opens up with our hero, Alex Hawke, sunbathing nude on an isolated beach in Bermuda when the topless skindiver lady surfaces with a bag full of shells (yeah, like this happens every day). Turns out she is the daughter of this Russian nut (tres coincidental). Meanwhile, the Tsar in waiting has a bomber running lose killing anyone they don't like, blowing up a prison, a birthday party for a Chechian (did I spell that right?) rebel, then the entire town of Salinas, Kansas. Hawke follows his new girlfriend to Russia to snoop around and stumbles across a plot to reestablish the former Soviet Union, seat a new Tsar and provoke the West into World War III-your average vacation for a spy, right?

Anyway, the plot moves along crisply, tracking the clues and double-crosses from Bermuda to Russia to a Russian prison (where Hawke is imprisoned with Putin of all people, patiently waiting to be placed back in power and return Russia to some level of sanity) back to Bermuda to an attack class sub to a hostage rescue operation on a blimp hovering over the Atlantic to Stockholm for the violent conclusion.

For the most part, this book has all the cliches of a political thriller: our fit, muscled, scar riddled hero who is the son of privilege and moves with the easy grace of an athlete, the breathtakingly beautiful femme fatale who happens to be the daughter of the bad guy and falls in love with the hero, SEAL team rescue, double agents who seem to know more than is plausible, flushing the bad guy out in public (entirely unrealistic...I chuckled when it happened saying to myself 'no way in hell'), violent end with our hero nearing death, miraculously recovering to live in a drunken haze of guilt and loss back in the Bermudian paradise. Political thriller novelists must have a boilerplate they follow.

anyway, this moved right along and might be a reasonable diversion. just realize it stretches the limits of believability. I was reminded of Bob Uecker's call of a pitch by the Wild Thing in the movie Major League, "Juuuuuust a bit outside" the realm of reality.

Cheers for a good year of interesting reading

East Coast Don

Shakedown by Charlie Stella

Bobby Genarro used to run a betting office for the local Mafiya family and it did pretty well. But he met a woman, Lin Yao and everything changed. He begged out of the life, wants to find a legit jog, marry Lin Yao, and make babies.

But the mob life has changed in recent years. Seems like every time a wiseguy gets picked up by the Feds, he rolls over on his old employers getting a new life somewhere well outside of NYC. The remaining wiseguys are left to clean up the messes and kill whomever they think could be the next to roll. The old loyalties have gone the way of the proverbial dodo bird. So when a guy either disappears or drops out, there must be a better reason than going legit and getting married. Bobby’s old bosses want to know if he is cooperating with the police. And they figure that Bobby made off with some of the profits from the old office and want some significant cash.

Tommy Agro, a wiseguy who can’t quite keep his analogies and metaphors straight, runs the local crew. He is training a new guy, a former U Michigan football player who bench presses 500 lbs named Forzino (he got hurt as a senior and missed out on a pro career) and is the nephew of some bigger boss; lotta muscle and potential, but short on experience. Joe Quack is Tommy’s boss, and apparently hung like a horse, which he uses to his advantage.

The NYPD organized crime unit is watching this part of the mob kind of implode on itself, but one of the 2 cops turns out to be dirty and working his own agenda. Forzino moved to NY with his fiance, Sally, who is kinda taken by the mob life and ends up bedding Joe Quack (and being sore for days afterward).

Bobby thinks he knows how to handle Agro and his crew so he can keep what money he has and avoid paying anybody anything, or at least get off on the cheap. But Agro sends in an Irish freelancer to convince Lin Yao to get Bobby to pay up. But things go south, Lin Yao gets snatched and her cousin, the head of a local Chinese street gang, decides to secure his family’s honor.

What started out as a simple shakedown escalates into nearly a full-blown war between the Italians, Chinese, and an Irish group trying to make some inroads. Bad guys are kidnapped by other bad guys, fingers are cut off, a hostage exchange is screwed up, the dirty cop surfaces, Forzino learns about his wife and Joe Quack (and does what a wiseguy in training should do); basically all hell breaks loose in this little corner of the Vignieris family.

As with his other books, this one follows a winning pattern: a good guy trying to do the right think, wiseguys out for themselves and their crew, a good cop and a bad cop. Never having been to NYC for more than a flight transfer, the descriptions of NYC made unknown locales pop in my mind’s eye. And don’t forget the dialogue that grabs you by the throat and drags you into Gennaro’s world. And as always, I fail miserably trying to describe Stella's intricate plotting.

But this is a sad day. I now have read through all Mr. Stella’s books and will have to patiently await what comes next from Stella’s fertile, if deliciously twisted, imagination.

BTW, thanks to the Knuckmeister hisself for arranging copies of earlier titles that seemed to be awfully hard to come by. With all the crap sitting on the shelves at B/N and Borders, you’d think quality storytelling would deserve some retail real estate. Sort of makes you go ‘hmmm.’ No wonder big box book stores are hurting; they wouldn’t know quality crime fiction if Forzino whacked mgmt across the face with any of Stella’s work.

East Coast Don

Bury Your Dead by Louise Penny

In “Bury Your Dead,” Penny takes on three simultaneous story lines, skillfully intertwining them in a way I’ve not seen done before. The first has to do with Chief Inspector Gamache’s struggle to recover from a hostage scene that has gone incredibly wrong, but it’s a scene that the readers of this series was unfamiliar, a scene that led to the death of an agent and the near fatal shooting of Gamache and his closest associate, Inspector Jean-Guy Beauvoir. The second story line has to do with the murder that was solved in the last book, “The Brutal Telling,” in which the resident of Three Pines, Olivier, was convicted of the crime of murder. While all evidence convincingly pointed to Oliver, Gamache was never satisfied that justice had been served, so as Gamache recovered from his wounds in Quebec, Beauvoir was sent back to Three Pines to take a new look at the old case.

The third story line occurred as Gamache was recuperating from his physical and emotional wounds in Quebec City in the warmth of his retired mentor, the former Chief Inspector of Surete du Quebec, Emile Comeau. Gamache’s hobby was to do research on the history of Quebec and he had a particular interest in finding the body of Samuel de Champlain, the founder of the city. In the course of his research, a new murder is committed that has a direct impact on Gamache’s quest. In the course of leading the reader through this story, the history of Quebec is fully reviewed and the author discussed the ongoing tensions between the English and French communities in the city.

Penny slips some great lines into her novels, and she did so again. While reviewing the history of the province of Quebec and discussing the people who were most fascinated by it, Penny wrote, "And while forgetting the past might condemn people to repeat it, remembering it too vividly condemned them to never leave."

This is a beautiful book, well written, creative, but if you new to Penny’s books, this is not the place to start. Her other books might be freestanding, but this one is not. At minimum, one should read “The Brutal Telling” before this one, but it would be better yet to start with book #1 of the Armand Gamache series, “Still Life.” If you’ve already read Penny and have finished “The Brutal Telling,” this one should be the very next book in your reading queue. With those caveats, Penny gets 5 stars for this effort.

Dark Spies by Matthew Dunn

Now here is an interesting 'what if' scenario. What if an old hard line Soviet spy used the US-Muslim extremist war to effectively cut off the head of the US, now leaving Russia to waltz in as the new alpha dog on the planet? Then, what if you had a pretty good notion what was behind it all? To borrow a line from a classic Johnny Carson bit where he skewered Karl Maulden, 'What would you do? What WOULD you do?"

Will Cochrane, son of a Brit spy, now works as a joint MI6 and CIA asset. He and most of the intelligence agencies in the western world are on the trail of Cobra, thought to be the primary source of money for Muslim terrorist groups around the world. He gets yanked off the search for some reason and is assigned to cover the possible defection of a Russian agent to the West. He's is settled under cover in the wintry backwoods of Norway. CIA deepdeepdeep cover agent Ellie Fellowes is bringing in this asset, code name Herald. Will spots a team of Russians moving on the house. They are commanded by a major Russian officer, code named Antaeus. 

Can't be. Last time Will saw Antaeus was seconds before a bomb Will planted blew Antaeus' car to kingdom come. Antaeus is dead! No, he's in his crosshairs. Will is in contact with Langley and requests the go code to kill Antaeus for good. His handler says that Antaeus is not to be touched. There is no info on why to anyone who does not have Ferryman clearance. Only 4 or 5 people in DC have such clearance and they are willing to let Fellowes and her asset be killed.

Will's gut tells him to protect his comrade and starts to take out the Russian intruders, but not before Herald is killed and Antaeus escapes.

Now what? Will has gone from being perhaps a most trusted and effective operative to being the object of a massive manhunt in the matter of a few seconds. He and Fellowes figure the only real way to get out of this mess is to find out what project Ferryman is and who is running it.

Off he walks . . . to the Norwegian coast . . . over water to Greenland where he walks . . . to the western shore . . . where he gets help from some undercover Russians watching Canada . . . then a flight in a little prop plane in some dangerous weather . . . to Nova Scotia . . . to the Maine border . . . beat the border guards where he winged a guard . . . eventually down to DC, mostly by bus despite his name and face being plastered across every print and electronic outlet out there.

The FBIs most tenacious manhunter is Marsha Gage who is put in charge of the most exhaustive manhunt in history drawing in the entire DC metro police force, every FBI agent not in the hospital, every CIA asset in town, and the renowned Hostage Rescue Team of the FBI, effectively turning DC into a police state to catch this one very dangerous man.

Will needs info on the project Ferryman and those with access. The primary players with access are Senator Colby Jellicoe, Ed Parker, former CIA field officer now a CIA Director, (just below THE director), and Charles Sheridan (one ruthless spook). And Will's going to get what he needs, put it together with what he's learned while crawling around DC, and see if it all adds up to the US being successful at killing Cobalt or becoming an international pariah, if Antaeus has anything to say about it . . . but not before a massive running firefight along Wisconsin Ave. in Georgetown.

I finished this over a late dinner. When I closed the book, I said aloud to no one, "Damn that was good."

The jacket blurb says that Dunn is a former MI6 operative with extensive covert and deep cover experience. This is the 4th book in his Spycatcher series and seeing as book 1 features Will Cochrane,  my keen intellect tells me that Cochrane is to Dunn what John Wells is to Alex Berenson or Mitch Rapp is to Vince Flynn, yadda, yadda, yadda.

Any fan of Thor, Flynn, Berenson, Steinhauer, Child, Fesperman, et al. will find a friend in Dunn. A guy with amazing skills and mind is cornered by both good and bad forces while he wrestles with what he's learning and how to handle the darkness building within him . . . not too mention a fascinating twist at the end that I've no doubt will come back in book #5. Last time I thought this highly of a new author (at least to us here at MRB) was Alex Berensen and we blazed our way right through his catalogue in no time.

Puts me in a quandary: what's next? Continue with the next Longmire mystery or root out Dunn's first, The Spycatcher, and see if my reading pace can keep up with the frantic pace of Dunn's stories? And he's been putting out books at a rate of 2/year. Either way I can't lose.

East Coast Don

available from Amazon