The Reluctant Sheriff by Chris Offutt

MRB returns to the Kentucky hills where author Chris Offutt sets his Mick Harding books.

Mick has returned home to Rocksalt, KY to help family. His sister is the county sheriff now convalescing after being wounded in her leg in the line of duty. She deputizes Mick (and he then deputizes another Army buddy). Along with a couple others in the Sheriff’s office, Mick takes on the day to day minutiae that waddles through the door – vagrant in a barn (actually a deer), missing pets, noisy neighbors.

He's not without skills. He’s former Army CID but wasn’t interested in getting back into law enforcement until his sister was shot. Actually there are two parallel stories going on. The minor story involves Johnny Boy who killed someone. Mick quickly sent him off to Corsica to stay with an old MI6-type Mick knew from Afghanistan to help him get over his PTSD. The primary story involves a series of murders that may or may not be connected. Part of the connection is that a person of interest is his ex-wife’s current husband not to mention a bunch of Deliverance rejects. Outside business interests are trying to establish a foothold in the hills and are doing their best to muscle their way in.

Offutt is a widely respected southern writer who skillfully takes the reader into a world most of us never experience. This is the 4^th Mick Hardin novel reviewed by MRB and he has developed a loyal following. Solid books. Compelling storylines, Smoothly paced and written. He is also the author of Country Dark that I thought was downright spectacular. Offutt may not be a household name, but he is certainly worth checking out.

Thanks to Netgalley for the Advance Reviewer Copy. Estimated publication date is 25 March 2025.

East Coast Don

 

Everybody Knows by Jordan Harper

This 2023 copyright is quite topical, probably more so than the author realized while writing it. 

The title is part 3 of the underlying theme of this book: Nobody Talks. Everybody whispers. Everybody Knows. 

Mae Pruett works for a formidable PR firm in LA. She is sort of a specialist in that she is a ‘black bag’ publicist. When a client goes afoul of public opinion (or the law), she dives in deep to find a way to swing public opinion in another direction. She’s a critical piece of “The Beast” that feeds, sucks, manipulates, and coerces public opinion in favor of the client no matter the level of depravity.

Her boss wants to meet Mae off site. She thinks he may be making a play for her, but it’s really about mapping out a strategy for a particularly powerful, wealthy, and secretive client and the office walls have ears. When she arrives at the meeting, she finds her boss has been killed in what the cops are saying is a carjacking gone bad. The next day, cops corner the perp and put him down. Case closed.

But Mae, and her former boyfriend Chris (ex-LA County sheriff, and currently muscle for a global security company – think Blackwater) think otherwise. They begin with the killer, a newbie gangster and work their way up a ladder that gets progressively more degenerate (and wealthy) with each step in a ladder filed with drugs, human trafficking, prostitution, corrupt cops, racketeering, and money laundering. And with each rung, they run the risk of becoming another victim in a demented subculture that seems to permeate LA.

Gotta love what has become neo-noir. You may not like Mea and Chris, how they operate, what laws they bend, and the people they manipulate to get to those who feed The Beast.

We all read books that are ‘torn from the headlines’ and this is no exception. You’d have to be blind or in denial to not see Harvey Weinstein, Jeffrey Epstein or P Diddy in this story. And I’m betting that the level of depravity presented in this book is just the tip of the Weinstein/Epstein/Diddy iceberg. If you think this might require readers to have a strong stomach, you might not be wrong. It’s not the violence. It’s the subject matter. 

The author is a former Edgar Award winner so you know this guy  knows how to write. I've already received his winning book, She Rides Shotgun. I'll be back with Harper's first in short order.  

East Coast Don

The Clandestine Education of Owen Roberts

 

The Clandestine Education of Owen Roberts is the first book in a trilogy by Richard Snyder. I had recently read the second book, Defector in Paradise, and I immediately knew I wanted to read the first one. Synder is a former intelligence officer who writes about the moral chaos of espionage. It is clear that this is a topic with which he is intimately familiar. This book starts as Owen Roberts graduates from spy school, or what the author referred to as the Schoolhouse. This was a school for non-CIA spies who were instead linked to the military intelligence operations. In fact, throughout the book there was great competition between the Agency and the Service.

 

While the new spies had been repeatedly told that an allegiance to the Service was an essential part of their assignments, from the beginning of his first assignment, the rookie spy Owen was repeatedly told by his senior partner that they would tell the Service what they wanted them to know, and they would sometimes make outright lies. There were always undercurrents to any information they were provided by the Service, and there was always the Agency who which was eager to take over their cases and always demanded to be kept informed about what they were doing and what they were planning. Owen and his partner Garret Langston, a senior operative were the protagonists of the story.  At the graduation from training, Garret had told the eighty newly minted spies that they would never figure out all angles of a case to which they were assigned. He said, “You never get the full story about anything or understand the full gauntlet of threats that await you as you sit alone in your hotel room far from the shores of the United States. Your agents will always lie to keep the money coming in so they can live the lift they think they deserve.” As Owen was being sent on his first mission, he learned that he was being sent to help an Iranian diplomat in Paris who wanted to defect.

 

In the course of the stories, there were murders and a suicide. Owen chose to help Garret settle an old score against a Russian agent, an action which was brutal and was far outside the assignment they had been sent to do. They kept this side hustle a secret from their bosses at the Service who demanded to know about every action they took. They encountered bad guys from the other side, one of whom had a beautiful sister that Owen fell in love with. I don’t need to give more away about the plot except to say that there were many twists in the story I did not see coming. It felt as if the reader was in the same position as the spies, not knowing all they needed to know in order to carry out their mission. Who was telling the truth and to whom were they telling it?

 

As this story came to an end, it was in a fantasy or hallucination that Owen had a conversation with his deceased cousin who had died on D-Day on the beaches at Normandy. As the adventure to rescue the Iranian diplomat was coming to an end, Owen struggled to justify his actions, and he heard his cousin say, “The horror in this world never stops coming at you. It’s a human avalanche of misery that never ends…. But horror, and the evil that comes with it, is like the devil, it is always there, full of grandiose deception, smiling faces, and powerful rhetoric, always changing as it hides behind injustice and grievance, using them as shield and sword. It uses those things to cloak the evil it does while wearing robes of white.”

 

I found author Snyder’s prose to be remarkable and he presents the dilemmas of the clandestine world in a perspective that makes me know he’s been there. Richard Snyder is a master storyteller, and now I eagerly await the third book in this trilogy about Owen Roberts.

Truth Over Tribe: Pledging Allegiance to the Lamb, Not the Donkey or Elephant

 Warning: Another book that is way out-of-genre.

I was recently contacted by a lifelong friend who wanted me to have a look at a book he had just finished reading, and then to have a discussion about it. The book is entitled Truth Over Tribe: Pledging Allegiance to the Lamb, Not the Donkey or Elephant. He admitted that he was having somewhat of a struggle with his lifetime affiliation with the Republican Party and the upcoming presidential election in which, if he was going to remain true to the party, or the Republican Tribe, that he would have to vote for Trump. My friend is a deeply Christian man who has lived his life by admirable standards, and he also lives in the midst of a red bubble. He admitted that he had been moved by recent declarations by Liz and Dick Chaney and Adam Kizinger to vote for Harris.

 

The book is written by two pastors, Patrick Keith Miller and Keith Simon, and they present a strong case about the dangers of tribalism which they define and explain. Much of their reasoning was based on biblical text with which I am not familiar. Regarding my friend, I find it fascinating that despite out very different perspectives about the source of our own spirituality, that we seemed to have arrived at the same point of view, that Trump does not deserve our votes, and Harris does.

 

The pastors have written a very readable book. I did get bogged down a bit in the Christian lingo and biblical quotes, but none the less it’s clear that the authors’ logic is sound. If the topic interests you and if you’re feeling a dilemma about the divisiveness that is present in our country today, then you might benefit from having a look at this book.

 

If nothing else, my friend and I are going to have ongoing interesting conversations. It seems that we are building a bridge between two very different bubbles, and I’m excited about that.

Call Me Hunter by Jim Shockey

Atria Books (imprint of Simon and Schuster) sent me a copy of this book. Another in the long line of products from the highly productive Emily Bestler Books.

A young reporter from Pinehurst, NC (think US Open Golf) finds a raw manuscript on her doorstep. She’s a bit hesitant to read it, but once she unwraps the package, she embarks on an investigation that is bound to change her life.

The subject of the book is a little boy with a unique ability. He’s able to spot ‘beauty’ be it art, published word (original copies only), and other things that someone might find to be ‘beautiful.’ The manuscript traces the growth of this boy through school, university, and beyond. He is absorbed into a shady and secret society whose goal is to find, obtain, preserve, and eventually sell these objects. It’s the ‘obtain’ aspect that tests the boy’s (and the reader’s) sensibilities and stomach for violence.

Our intrepid reporter takes on the task, with her goofy roommate, to trace the story line from NC through the US and Canada to follow this boy's attempt to separate himself from this society of art-obsessed killers and reach the meat of the surprise ending.

Now I’m an unapologetic supporter of anything published by Emily Bestler Books. But not this time. It took me the better part of a year, picking it up and setting it down, and still never finished. I could never get into what was, to me, one far-fetched story. I looked up other reviews on GoodReads.com. "International Bestseller!"  the website says in huge bold letters. Bottom line was that other readers either loved it or where like me, kind of confused and unimpressed.

But as with art, it’s all in the eye of the beholder, right? Don’t take my word for it. You might find it a fascinating ride. Me? Not my cup of tea. 

But I still love Emily Bestler Books.

East Coast Don.

In Too Deep by Lee Child and Andrew Child

Never gets old. Even after 29 books, the Jack Reacher story continues to roll on.

Somewhere near the Ozarks, Jack Reacher (no middle initial) is having a burger, coffee, and a slice of pie. Outside, it looks like a couple punks are trying to steal a car. Reacher’s sense of right/wrong won’t let him ignore them, steps outside and in his typical friendly manner, convinces the would-be thieves to rethink their plan.

The car owner is quite grateful and in the ensuing conversation learns that Reacher is headed toward New Orleans via his thump and a bus ticket. The grateful car owner offers Reacher a ride. While showing off what his car can do, the driver runs the car off the road. Driver dead. Reacher unconscious. No memory of the attempted car theft, the ride, of the crash.

Somehow, Reacher ends up in a hospital with a healthy case of retrograde amnesia and a casted broken wrist. A day in the hospital is more than Reacher can stand and makes his leave against medical advice.

His first task is to find out more about the driver. On second thought, that might not have been his best decision because he’s stumbled onto a small ‘gang’ of crooks who specialize in stealing/selling counterfeit or original artwork. And they’ve been pretty good at it.

One member of this gang is quite the online researcher. She directs her compadres on where to find and obtain said artwork. But she’s also hacked into something called Cone Enterprises and has hit on what could be the motherlode of motherlodes. A report whose contents are so explosive that they could name any price and sell it to enemies of the US. Reacher, a suspended Phoenix PD detective, and the FBI try to track down the report and keep it away from any form of prying eyes.

Good grief. This is the 29^th Jack Reacher book. And Child and Child still manage to keep the story fresh and current. This was a fast 3-day read for me. Saying it was a page-turner is trite. You just can’t wait to see where the next page will take you.

And if you’ve been living in a cave, Amazon Prime Studios has two seasons of Reacher for streaming. And no, Tom Cruise isn’t playing Reacher. Alan Ritchson (all 6’2” and 240 lbs of him) is carrying the weight of the franchise on his considerable shoulders. Season 3 is being shot now and a 4^th season has already received the green light. With 29 books, the Reacher character has plenty of source material.I've watched both seasons twice. A third is in my future.

Thanks to NetGalley for the advance reviewer copy. Publication date is 22 OCT 2024 so reserve your copy now . . . not tomorrow. NOW.

East Coast Don

Shadow Of Doubt by Brad Thor

Lots of balls being juggled here in Thor’s 24^th Scot Harvath story:

1.     A big Russian cargo plane has left Russian airspace and appears headed for Belarus. Destination and cargo both unknown.

2.     A high-level Russian defector walks across the border to Norway asking for asylum, but only if he can hand himself over to Sølvi Kolstad, a very senior officer in the Norwegian version of the CIA . . . who is also Harvath’s fiancé.

3.     A career French spy is set to meet with the CIA’s Chief of Station in Paris, but is brutally murdered in his apartment the night before the meeting. Paris cops and the French DGSI are at odds about jurisdictional conflicts.

4.     Russia is still mired down in Ukraine, wants it done and is looking into ways to finish off Ukraine without invoking a NATO response.

5.     Russian hit squads have been told my Moscow to drop their gloves and do what’s necessary to silence the defector, set up the contents on the mystery plane, and to make sure that whatever secrets the French agent had discovered remain hidden.

6.     And all of that has landed on the Russia Desk at Langley resulting in many sleepless nights for analysts and Directors alike.

For the bulk of the book, Harvath and Kolstad are moving the defector around while staying one step ahead of various hit squads while the French cops and DGSI dance around each other trying to keep the other knowing anything sensitive.

And as usual for any Thor/Harvath book, you can get your bottom dollar that ‘there will be blood.’ Lots of it.

When I started Thor’s latest book, I had the inkling that maybe this story line had cooled off for me. That maybe this might my last foray into the violent world of Scot Harvath.

And that would be wrong path to take. 

Thor gives the reader a (seemingly) thorough treatment of East-West geopolitics presenting reasons why Russia (the real and this fictional one) is doing what it’s doing. Hint: Chapter 37 is a succinct account on some of the reasons behind why Russia is involved with Ukraine and what the likely next steps might be. 

A chilling and frightening discussion of what the next decade might be.

So bring it on Thor. My apologies for having doubted you. Fall 2025 can’t get here soon enough.

East Coast Don