Night Road

January 1, 2016
Nearly everyone in DuBois' splendid thriller is nursing a grudge. Zach Morrow was dishonorably discharged from the Coast Guard no pension, no bennies after he disobeyed an order and saved lives. Tanya Gibbs, of Homeland Security, believes that government incompetence made the destruction of the Twin Towers possible. She takes it personally because her best friend was killed there. And Duncan Crowley was cheated out of his inheritance by a slimy lawyer. All three converge in a little town in New Hampshire, focusing on a container that likely holds explosives and has been stolen, maybe by terrorist wannabes. To Morrow, Gibbs, and Crowley, it offers redemption. Morrow, now working for Homeland Security, and Gibbs are hunting Crowley, who appears to be part of the plotat least that's the setup. The plot contortions are serpentine but easy to follow, helped along by DuBois' galloping prose and witty, urbane dialogue. Do country people there really talk like Noel Coward? Never mind, it's fun to read. Surprises keep coming until the last page, where we're let in on a vast, circular plot reminiscent of Grishamand worthy of him.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)

January 1, 2016

Zach Morrow was cashiered out of the Coast Guard after a secret operation went terribly wrong; as a result, he lost his benefits and chances of finding a decent job. But Zach gets a second chance when he's approached by an officer of Homeland Security. If he will infiltrate a criminal enterprise in New Hampshire and disrupt a plot to smuggle a weapon into the United States from Canada, she will ensure he gets an honorable discharge and regains his pension. The problem: the target is an old friend of Zach's from high school. VERDICT The author of the "Lewis Cole" series (Blood Foam) has written a taut, suspenseful thriller that features an admirable hero trying to do the right thing for everyone. This book will be perfect for readers who enjoy Paul Doiron, David Housewright, or Reed Farrel Coleman.

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

December 1, 2015
A truck laden with suspicious and perhaps dangerous cargo is crossing from Canada to the U.S., and everyone on either side of the border wants a piece of the action. Naturally, backwoods New Hampshire drug dealer Duncan Crowley, who, with his ex-con older brother, Cameron, has been charged with ensuring that the shipment arrives on schedule, has an interest in the truck. So does Francois Oullette, president of Quebec's Iron Steeds biker gang, after his attempt to extract a pass-through fee from the Crowleys ends with the execution of the collectors, Oullette's nephew and his driver. When Tanya Gibbs, a Homeland Security agent obsessed with avenging a friend who worked at the World Trade Center, gets wind of the shipment, she reaches out to Zach Morrow, who went to school with Duncan Crowley before he enlisted in the Coast Guard and earned a dishonorable discharge, to intercept the truck. Back on his home turf, Zach quickly insinuates himself into Duncan's gang but finds himself more and more reluctant to betray his old schoolmate and his wife, Karen, who lost her virginity to Zach in high school. Meanwhile, since Tanya's clearly gone rogue in dealing with Zach, Gordon Simpson, her boss at Homeland Security, reveals an interest in the shipment that doesn't exactly coincide with hers. It strains belief that so many people (and there are others) would know about the most fraught Canadian delivery to the U.S. in the two nations' histories. But the creator of disgraced government agent Lewis Cole (Fatal Harbor, 2014, etc.) juggles his warring factions so deftly that you may find yourself forgetting how unlikely the threatened apocalypse really is. A bonus: just when you think you know exactly how this mishmash will turn out, DuBois throws in a pleasing final surprise that will make you forgive the soft-boiled ending.

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