The First Rule

I first met them about four years ago, on a bone-frigid day while living in Illinois. I was trolling through the bargain books at the book store while the spousal unit and Ozzy were meandering about in the pet store. We’d had a crop dusting of snow that morning secondary to the actual torrent the night before and the one before that. It was one of those days where, after a string of them, if you had to look at the same four walls one more second, you’d explode. So, cabin fever aside, we bundled-up and set out into a ’sunny’ day through the muck and mire that had remained on the streets after the salt- trucks got through with them.

I was looking for something different. Someone different. My old ‘friends’, quietly occupying the dusty bookshelves at home, had gotten on my last nerve, so I went out in search of fresh meat while Keith and Oz looked for canned.

I found someone different all right. I met Elvis Cole who introduced me to Joe Pike, and together, they pulled me inside the belly of the criminal underworld. Cole and Pike are Gum-Shoes. Military Rangers turned mercenaries, turned cops, turned Gun shop owner, turned…..well, you get the picture. Their double edged connections between this ‘good’ life and that ‘bad’ one, is a brilliant rendering of colorful characters and highly skilled story-telling.

I’ll have to admit that I am partial to Cole, and I became obsessed with inhaling everything about him. Pike was always there, of course. Just under the skin. An irritation that doesn’t seem to want to heal. But in a good way. So when he first ventured out on his own, I was there.

This is the second book with Joe Pike as the forerunner and Elvis Cole as the skin prickler (Please don’t send me any emails, I know that prickler is not a word, but hey, it fits).

Joe Pike, in this just released book, which I finished in two sittings, sets out to avenge an old friend’s murder. An old friend who just happens to be one of Pike's ‘men’ from the mercenary days. Frank Myer was one of ‘his’ even though they lost touch over the years. So, when Pike gets a call from a police connection with the news about the ‘execution’, and that his friend may have been dirty, Joe goes into overdrive, eliciting Cole’s help.

Eastern European gangs bound by a thieves‘ code just made their first mistake.

Thrilling at Four Stars

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