The Diabolical

The Diabolical is David Putnam’s 11^th Bruno Johnson Novel. ECD, my fellow blogger and great friend of 52 years since we were beginning our post-college degrees, reviewed the 9^th book, The Scorned about one year ago, and the eighth The Sinister about two years ago. All three books have been published by Oceanview Publishing, one of our very favorite publishing houses. At some time, were going to have to do a deeper dive to get all of Bruno’s background stories. In ECD’s review of The Scorned, he described that much of the first half was devoted to backstory and especially about feelings. He wrote, “More discussion about feelings than you might find in a romance novel.” I’ve never known ECD to admit that he spent any time reading romance novels.

This novel takes place in Costa Rica where Bruno Johnson and his wife, Marie, have moved with their 14 children to find a better location to raise the kids. Bruno had apparently lost two of his own kids to LA’s gang and drug culture. He acknowledged that the kids with him in Costa Rica are not all legally his, noting that he had rescued most of them from at risk home in South Central Los Angeles. Bruno has found a job at the Lido Cabana bar where he can keep his eye on anyone who might be approaching him for extradition back to LA for both kidnapping and murder charges. The Johnson’s have also arrived with friends. Bruno depends on generous tips from his customers in order to clothe and feed his kids, and he can’t turn down an offer from Otis Brasher to watch out for people that want to harm him (for reasons that Otis would not fully explain). Otis spent his time sitting at the bar and consuming a 13 to 20 grasshoppers per day, thus getting totally drunk. Otis was an abrasive character, but Bruno certainly liked the $1,000 per day that he was receiving for escorting Otis to and from the bar every day.

 

Things started to go south when there was a mass shooting at another bar which took out some of Bruno’s friends. It turns out some people, including Otis, think there are stolen diamonds in the area – the problem being, the diamonds were stolen from the mob. There were good cops and corrupt cops, more murders, more love with the elegant Marie. Especially there was the struggle that Bruno continued to have with himself from allowing the very dark side of himself to emerge. The author lightened up some of the moments with the dog, Waldo, who was wonderfully portrayed.

 

It's an excellent story, another winner for Oceanview Publish.